


Tarot

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [19]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Conspiracies, Diplomacy, Gen, Jedi Shadows, Plots, Politics, Sith, Taxes, Trade Federation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25906840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: Fate has a funny way of filling out the roles to be played.
Series: The Desert Storm [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1311746
Comments: 1222
Kudos: 1614





	1. Chapter 1

“Can I help you?” Ben finally grumbles, cracking his eyes open to what _should_ be an empty meditation chamber, his holocron resting on the floor before him.

“It does not resonate.” Lady Livion remarks, appearing to lounge across the floor, fine, semi-transparent green fingers prodding at the holocron’s casing to no effect, shadows pulling around the mirage of the woman.

“That’s because it does not have a crystal heart.” Ben replies, forcing patience. “I have no intention of doing to myself what you have done.”

Searing, acidic yellow eyes narrow in his direction. “At one point, neither did I.” She remarks scathingly.

She does not help him find either calm nor serenity. Yet she insists on haunting his meditations – and several other masters as well, much to the many complaints of said Jedi. However, given that she can be banished by a simple enough push in the Force – such as even junior padawans and disciples were easily taught to accomplish – and had little power beyond the cracked vault in which her source was held, Fay and Yaddle had come to some arrangement of allowing her continued ‘freedom’ such as it was.

Ben simply wished she seemed far less interested in _him_ in particular.

At least she left him alone during his actual Healer sessions – Healer Ylar Kala had taken to engaging the dark lady’s spirit when she intruded, and Lady Livion had balked when she realized that the soul healer was actually trying to _treat_ her.

Though she had made an interesting comment about “not _another_ meddling jedi” that had Ben intrigued.

Ben glowers at her for her needling, and then closes his eyes again, drawing in a deep breath. Then, deliberately, he draws back his defenses. He can feel her presence, caustic and brittle and cold as it was, but it’s a dulled breath of sour frost compared to the onslaught he’d first experienced, brushing against his mind like an ill wind, but unable to gain purchase against him.

He waits a moment, until she recognizes what he is doing and sulks, lashing out but achieving little more than a stinging pain, her own powerlessness made apparent.

Still, the masters tested this at times, to ensure the safety of the more vulnerable among them.

Ben muses that not so long ago, allowing such a thing as her to meander these hallowed halls would have been condemningly unthinkable, but these were shifting times, and she was hardly the only peculiar thing in the Temple.

The jedi had poured an intense, unprecedented amount of power into the Temple during collapse. It had left…. Echoes. Or, in some cases, woken them up. With the removal of the creche and the Initiates to Alderaan, the new oddities almost made up for the lack of their bright presence.

But the scars remained in sealed corridors and reshuffled housing and notable absences. In the fractures down the Grand Entry Hall, and cracking in statues and pillars and the loss of a good portion of the Temple gardens. ExploraCorps engineers and architects and disciples and any and all volunteers certainly had their hands full. AgriCorps botanists and ecologists were salvaging what they could from the gardens, reworking the carefully balanced biomes and creating small oasis elsewhere with the assistance of the potted gardens that had flourished following the Temple’s Bane quarantine. 

Of all the things to have survived the attack, Ben’s quarters had been unharmed, but unattended and unpruned, his plants had made a hostile take-over of his living space. In hindsight, it was amusing, but at the moment – fresh home from Mandalore and finally seeing the devastation here for himself, it had been one frustration, one stress too many.

Whatever breakdown he’d had, he’d woken up in the Halls of Healing only vaguely recalling Obi-Wan escorting him there, and spent the next week with Healer Chias and Healer Kala before compiling his report for the Reconciliation Council. He’d then spent the entirety of the next month in daily sessions with his Soul Healer and his Holocron.

“If you don’t wish to remember, why not simply forget?” Lady Livion inquires, voice drawing low, almost soft, though her eyes were aglow, just as interested in the pain the question might cause him as the answer he might give her.

Ben looks back at her and sighs. “Why didn’t _you_?”

She doesn’t appear to like that response, as she leaves. Ben, after another unsettled minute, does the same.

Master Adi catches him on the walk, and Ben smiles to see her, realizing his padawan must be back as well. “Master Adi, how was the wedding season on Gatalenta?” He inquires pleasantly.

The violet-eyed tholotian woman gives him a _look_.

Oh.

“There were ten Jedi in attendance, Master Naasade. _Ten_.” She says sternly, and Ben feels his smile strain. It usually took a cohort of Jedi to manage the ceremonial traditions of Gatalenta, so Adi had scooped up quite a few padawans an young knights, including his own. “Guess which of them got married?”

“Guess which one of them got married?” She demands, and then does not give him the space to do so. “Guess which of them got married _twenty-seven_ times.”

Ben winces ruefully, though Adi is putting on a front, and truly, he _is_ amused.

“The tea ceremony?” He hedges, guessing wherein the fault lied.

“The _tea ceremony_!”

Ben can’t help it, he chuckles, and Adi shakes her head, hair pods bounding, betraying her true feelings on the matter. “To be fair,” Ben says, “ there are over _two_ _hundred_ nuanced variations –“

She holds up a palm, stopping her erstwhile defense of his padawan. “I spent _three days_ getting those marriages properly absolved. You’re lucky to be getting him back.”

“Well-“

“I had the good foresight to forbid him from the bath-houses.”

Ben pauses, bites down in the inside of his lip, and concedes defeat. “I apologize for the trouble.” He bows, and then quirks his brow when he looks back up at her. “Though I do believe you were warned.”

She grumbles, having no defense for that.

Ben has received, since returning from Mandalore, more than one good humored remark from his fellow masters about making sure to keep a closer eye on his padawan, as he was shaping up into quite the attractive young man, and Ben could not properly express his mortification at such remarks.

Some of them had been accompanied by the refrain ‘ like padawan like master, it seems’ and Ben had watched more than one of them say it, and then think about it, and then frown, and at that point he thought it best to simply…excuse himself. He knew the conclusions they were starting to draw, at long last, but it was not so dire now, to think that perhaps he and his padawan may be more than coincidentally alike, as it would have been years ago.

Let them think that Obi-Wan was his offspring. One absurdity to hide another.

Obi-Wan was, of course, oblivious to coming to such a conclusion himself, having met his own kin. Ben had heard more than one Mando ‘mistakenly’ refer to Ben as Obi-Wan’s _buir_ , to his padawans face, only to receive rolled eyes and a mild correction. “That’s not exactly how it works among the _Jetiise_.” He’d say, or “ my **_baji_** _’buir_ ” he’d emphasize, and the _Mando’ade_ seemed to take this with either a grain of salt or with a compassionate sort of pity, like Obi-Wan was simply bound to obey a pretense.

Ben shakes his head, clearing his thoughts, and can’t resist prodding at a fellow master himself. “Siri didn’t have a single mishap herself? Exactly how hard did you drill that girl to accomplish such a feat?”

Gatalenta had a _reputation_ , lovely world that it was.

“My master would be trying to save face.” Siri appears, approaching from behind Ben at a saunter, coming to a stop shoulder to shoulder with her master. Ben isn’t the only one being outgrown. “I’m Obi-Wan’s ninth wife.”

“Siri.” Adi mutters.

“Ninth ex-wife.” The blonde corrects primly.

“ _Siri_.” The tholotian master sighs, looking aggrieved.

Ben chuckles, and, mission accomplished, Siri offers them both a sharp, victorious smile and flounces off.

~*~

The foundations of the new Temple at Alderaan, Padawan Swan had reported, were _old_. Indeed, it’s new residents could sense that.

Nestled in a hilled valley of which it was the sole occupant, the campus had a curved, elegant shape, imitating the curve bowl of the valley and the diamond ridge behind it, all white synth-stone and marble, with eleven levels layered like a gentle sloped stair.

At its peak on the north-end, crowning above the eleventh - smallest, highest - level, was the dome of an old observatory long ago converted into a greenhouse. Full, sheltered balconies wrapped the north face of the observatory tower, opening from the library beneath the greenhouse. Each open rooftop had, at one point, been well maintained gardens, though now they were cleared and quite barren. Crystal windows glittered all along the white walls, shimmering like water as the day passed. The grounds were slightly overgrown from neglect, between the structure and the low half-wall that circled it, defining a secure property line, though the entire valley had once been well traversed by previous occupants.

Glacier fed falls streams from a broken river littered the valley in gentle brooks and waterways, a pretty series of gushing waterfalls standing opposite the campus, casting rainbows on a good morning. The small series of ponds and the stream tucked up against the diamond ridge just south of the campus grounds, however, were all fed from a geothermal spring, and remained warm year-round, often curating a low fog before the sun crested the horizon. Starblossom fruit trees grew in clustered copses of wild orchards, and the local wildlife seemed a little bewildered by the re-emergence of people in their little corner of the world.

A few security watchtowers topped the ridge that sheltered a third of the valley, adopted and quickly brought to repair by the Alderaan’s Royal Security. A landing port had quickly been lain in, so that any visitors to the Temple could land their vessels and then be escorted down.

Only approved vessels would be permitted to descend into the valley.

Before it had been an academy, the campus had been a royal retreat, and before that, a military outpost, and before that, an observatory. The structure itself had been rebuilt and remodeled more than once, but the original foundations still lay beneath the new. 

And now it was theirs.

Shmi leaves Master Lohlarryyyl and Master Rulan to debate the merits of allowing or disallowing initiates to ‘camp out’ on the third roof overnight and goes to respond to the notice that they have a guest just arrived in the atrium. The Aca – the Temple has an interesting and lovely chime system that everyone was still getting used to, as it played through the facility in accordance with astrological measures – sunrise and sunset, midday and midnight – which it had done since the structure had still been an observatory. It also alerted to meal times – in accordance with a traditional Alderaani schedule, which included a very early breakfast, and both a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon tea. It also, when not given the proper prompt by anyone entering the facility, chimed for ‘guests’.

With the midnight wake-up calls, there had been much debate over the chimes, but the best they were offered by some bewildered engineers was that either the system could be disabled completely or left as it was. Programing the thing was beyond them, as it had been a…. unique creation.

The younglings had been very disheartened at the idea of getting rid of the chimes, and so it stayed, and now everyone was getting used to ‘midnight break’ which had quickly blossomed into a fast tradition of midnight snacks and cuddles.

They had had quite a retinue of guests; volunteers to assist in negating some of the neglect the grounds had suffered, patrons from various Houses bringing in donations – textiles and toys, seedlings and small amenities, and even a few groups of schoolchildren, excited to meet ‘little jedi’ their age and learn about their new neighbors on Alderaan. Handmaidens of Queen Breha visited often, ensuring they had everything they needed, asking many questions and making a few respectful proposals, keeping communication open and spending several hours each time playing with the younglings, teaching them about alderaani flowers and embroidery and generally finding excuses to spoil them as much as possible under the slightly exasperated eyes of their crechemasters.

What Shmi finds, however, is a bewildered cluster of shuffling padawans, and the familiar tall figure of Master Plo Koon.

“Knight Shmi!” Padawan Leska greets her first, hand in hand with yellow-skinned Feral and orange-skinned Ravage, both sticking to her side like burs.

Maroon skinned Talon is trailing the outer edge of the room, fingertips drifting along the wall as he studies the views curiously. The atrium is perfectly round, with a double set of entry doors Shmi had been told would keep cold air from gusting in during winter. Howl and Savage, however, are flanking Master Plo like a protection detail, and Shmi assumes as to the reason why when she gets a look at the chubby-cheeked, bright eyed bundle in his arms.

“Padawan Leska.” Shmi greets. “Padawan Feral, Padawan Ravage, Padawan Savage, Padawan Talon, Padawan Howl.” She regards each other them in turn, watching the way they shuffle and Talon rolls his eyes at the pointedly lengthy introduction everyone enjoys giving them, emphasizing the great mischief Plo had undertaken when claiming _six_ padawans. “Master Plo.” She finishes.

“Knight Skywalker.” He greets, in his deep, gentle tones, bowing his head. He lifts the little togruta up, and she grins brightly, clinging to his arms.

“I’m ‘Soka!” She trills, in burbling basic. Shmi smiles.

“Ahsoka Tano.” Master Plo intones, full of fond warmth.

“She _bites_.” Ravage blurts out, a tad grumpy. Leska and Feral both roll their eyes.

“Tha’s me!” The tiny togruta chirps, still coming into her grasp of basic.

“Well met.” Shmi replies, smiling warmly. Master Plo tucks her back against his chest, and Shmi looks up to him. “Would you like a tour?” She inquires.

He inclines his head. “I would be delighted to have your escort, Knight Skywalker.”

Shmi feels her lips pursing, amused at his gentlemanly manners, and takes his arm. He never treats her as less than a lady in high standing, with all the courtesies that entails, and while it had at first puzzled Shmi and made her feel quite awkward, it now rests as something of a pleasant humor between them.

The chimes go off and they both pause, glancing back.

Talon has stepped out and come back in, looking the door up and down with consternation. He steps back through, and back in.

The chimes go off.

He turns around to do it a third time, and Howl chuffs at him, a low warning. “ _Talon_.”

“But it’s _interesting_!”

Ahsoka giggles, a raucously delighted little sound that takes up her whole body.

Talon smirks like he’s won a challenge, and Plo rumbles in amusement, earning a defeated look from his eldest Padawan.


	2. Chapter 2

“Apologies for my tardiness.” Bant looks up at Obi-Wan as lopes into the courtyard, where she and a collection of padawan and disciples have gathered under the gentle shade of a golden-leafed woosha tree. She smiles and fixes her large eyes on him, narrowing them in mock reproach.

“This whole endeavor was your idea, you know.” She says.

He offers her a rueful grin, raking a glance over the assembled Junior Sabacc League and the fresh crop of young students who have yet to learn the art of playing cards among jedi and as jedi. “My practical ran long.” He offers, which she supposes is a perfectly reasonable excuse. In the five months since his return from Mandalore, Obi-Wan has dedicated himself with a near fervor to a set of practical courses, those which required lab-time and hands-on learning. She supposes it is reasonable – his lecture and theory courses can be easily removed to self-study and remote learning, but long missions like his last…. Healing, Courtesies and Ceremony, Sciences and the like, he really had to attend in person with a learned instructor to guide him, so getting them done while on mission was all but impossible. Bant had experienced that herself during her long hauls at Ossus with Master Tahl.

Still, Bant didn’t quite approve of just how many he’d decided to tackle at once. Her friend was dear to her, and dedicated, but really, she thought he was terrible at pacing himself. Jedi strong in the Unifying Force were always prone to anxiety, just as Jedi strong in the Living Force tended to be hyperactive or restless, but sometimes Obi-Wan seemed as if he was racing against something, as if…. Oh, Bant doesn’t really know. Obi-Wan seemed to hold himself to impossible standards, made worse by the fact that he _was_ as accomplished as he was. Bant used to blame his master for that, for having unfairly high standards, but she’d come to realize that Master Ben was _exactly the same way_.

They were ridiculous, both of them.

Obi-Wan sidles up next to her, leaning in for a brief embrace as he greeted some of the less familiar faces, the younger padawans and disciples turning shy or over-excited for his attention, full of awe. Bant hugs him around the ribs, fully taking him off his feet, until he wheezes.

“Bant!” He pleads, and there is a spate of giggles and snorts as the Mon Calamari drops him, leaving him aflush with sheepish pleasure and a mock fuss as he smooths out his tunics. Sometimes, her friend could be so _prim_.

Still, the display has the effect of shaking a few of the less outgoing younglings from their stupor of being in the presence of _the_ Obi-Wan Kenobi, and quickly enough everyone is hashing it out over decks of cards, fumbling at shuffling and asking shrill, shrewd questions about the ethics of cheating.

“Jedi will always have an unfair advantage at cards – we know what’s in everyone’s hand. That is a simple younglings test. Sabacc, however, is the levelest playing field there is between Force-Sensitives and non-sensitives, because the cards in hand can change, rendering ineffective most attempts at card-counting and long-term strategizing. If it violates your morality to have an added advantage, then I suggest you don’t play while out and about in the galaxy.” Obi-Wan answers, with an educators air dosed heavily with friendly teasing. “However, it can still be a fun past-time to paly at home among friends. There’s no fault in _learning_ it.”

“But what about-“

They settle in, quickly engaged with teaching new players the basic set of rules and letting the more familiar players get into a few hands before testing their skills.

It’s easy, fun, and for a moment, everyone is happy.

Given the hard times the Jedi have had of late, Bant is all too grateful to bask in it.

~*~

“Komari!” Sian detours from the refectory doors and bounds over to the older Padawan, who at first offers one of those fierce smiles and then backpedals when she realizes that Sian is filthy.

“Not a chance, little sister!” Komari gives her a small, rough shove with the Force, and Sian rocks on her heels, grinning from ear to ear. “What _are_ you covered in?”

“Master Qui-Gon and I were transporting some trafficked Fathier back to their native habitat.” Sian explains, grinning brightly. “One of them went into labor mid hyper-space jump. It was an… _involved_ process.”

There are things Sian had never imagined herself doing. Manually removing afterbirth from an exhausted and malnourished fathier mount was one of them. But she’s done that now.

“Qui-Gon didn’t try and keep any, did he?”

Sian blinks brightly. “That would be _illegal_ , Komari.”

“Should I repeat the question?” The blonde inquires dryly, and Sian laughs. Her master _had_ been enamored. Luckily, fathier were too big to smuggle under a robe. “Nevermind, you are _ripe_. You need to go shower. Now.”

Sian could definitely tell where she got that clipped, imperious tone of command from.

“I’m _starving_.” Sian whines. She’s also _tired_. If she went back to her quarters and stripped, she’d probably be dead asleep on her bed before getting dressed again. Surely she didn’t smell too awful? She’d just be in the refectory for a _minute_.

Granted, non-carnivorous species had a tad different sensitivity to the smell of blood and offal. Maybe she did smell that bad.

“I will bring you something, just….” She gives her a shooing motion, nose wrinkled in thinly veiled disgust.

Sian concedes to that and nods, taking off at a bound and running right into someone as she rounds the corner, toppling them over with a yelp.

It’s Bultar.

“Sian.” The older girl says her nae placidly, breathing in before abruptly stopping that, dark eyes pinching in polite refrain. Sian stares down at her, having landed on her, bodies pressed together, and abruptly jolts, leaping to her feet, face _flaming_.

“Bultar, I am – oh no.”

There is _definitely_ viscera on those pristine tunics. Padawan Swan blinks calmly at her, very deliberately not looking down at herself as she rights her shirt hems, tugging them down to fit as they ought under her belt, fingertips just gripping the hems.

“I am so sorry.” Sian blurts, hands coming up to hover under her chin. What is she supposed to do with her hands? Can she help? _Should_ she help? Would that just make it worse?

“I accept your apology.” Bultar replies, breathing very shallow. Sian skitters a step back. Maybe she _does_ smell that awful. Oh no. Oh no. “It was an accident.”

She blames her master for this.

Bultar’s brow pinches a little, but she does take an easier breath now that Sian isn’t quit so close. “Perhaps be more mindful.” She offers.

“Y-yes. I will be. Again, I am – I am so sorry.” Sian should probably stop staring at her. Her heart thumps painfully in her chest, drumming in her throat, her cheeks burning.

Bultar glances aside and nods, and, with that, courteously dismisses herself.

Sian sucks in a deep breath and buries her face in her hands in mortification, just as Komari starts snickering, approaching with her promised lunch. “Oh, little sister…!” She wheezes - she actually _wheezes_ \- laughing at her misfortune.

“She is _never_ going to like me.” Sian bemoans.

“But you are so _loveable_.” Komari teases, going to tug on her braid and then thinking better of it, pulling a grimace as she retracts her hand. “Not that I understand what you see if her. She’s a bit stiff, isn’t she?”

“Komari!” Sian shoots her a look. “She’s _beautiful_ , and graceful, and competent-“

“I think I should stop you there.” Komari drawls.

Sian sighs, taking her offered lunch and pulling meat pie out of the sack as they walk. Komari gives her a grimacing look, but Sian _has_ washed her hands. Still, Komari was keeping a bit ahead of her and a distinct step away. “What have you been up to, then? I’ve hardly seen you.” Sian sighs again, less dramatically, and looks curiously over the blonde, who gives her an odd, coy smile.

“That’s hardly surprising, as much as you’ve been out of temple.” Komari remarks.

“Everyone’s busy these days.” Sian shrugs. It was the way things had to be for now.

“Tell me about it.” Komari rolls her eyes, mouth tugging towards a slightly disdainful frown. “We’re constantly scuttling back and forth from the Senate and sent off running diplomatic errands. It’s tiresome, really, though I have made a rather interesting acquaintance.”

“You?” Sian gasps in mock exaggeration. “An acquaintance? In the _Senate_? Tell me more. Tell me he’s a young, dashing ambassador from a far off world of riches with the sweetest smile you _ever_ did see.”

“I am _not_ one of your holonovel characters, thank you.” Komari snorts. “And I have no interest in participating in anything so gauche as your hormonal escapades.”

Guache? _Guache_? _That_ was a ten-credit word right out of Master Dooku’s mouth, if Sian had to bet.

“It’s just a bored old muun who finds the Senate as tedious as I do. He’s been teaching me to play Shah-Tezh.” Komari drawls carelessly, offering a light shrug when Sian gives her an incredulous look.

“Shah-Tezh?” Sian repeats, surprised. “I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think you had the temperament for such a game.”

“I’m not exactly the most patient of persons, you mean?” Komari lifts a pale, bone-blonde brow, washed out blue eyes glittering.

“Erm…. Yeah.” Sian admits. Shah-Tezh was an archaic, complicated strategy game. The progenitor of dejarik and moebius and holochex, all of which were more popular as they were more accessible and easier to play. Shah-Tezh required a meticulousness most people just didn’t have the wherewithal for.

Komari offers her a strange, knowing sort of smirk. “Little sister, you would be surprised what some people can learn.”

~*~

“Maybe,” Fay muses, pressing fingers into flesh and earning a groan, “ you should have considered the consequences of all but driving the Battle Master into retirement.”

Ben shudders under her hands, back laid bare before her as she kneads out some truly impressive strains and knots in his muscles, the both of them settled on the couch in her quarters, the scent of almond oil and red tea warming the air. She runs one hand thoughtfully down his spine, perusing the faded marks of old scars. He has many. A few freckles too, reminding him that he spent some very serious time under the sun at one point.

She’s tempted to lean forward and kiss one or two, but she doesn’t. Ben had come back different, from Mandalore. A touch more open, more affectionate, but raw as well. This, this new intimacy? She enjoys it. He enjoys it. More than that, he _needs_ it, she thinks. She won’t say she doesn’t – people weren’t meant to be alone, especially not people such as them, people who _felt_ so deeply.

But it’s… tricky, and it’s not the same as their previous friendly flirtations and melancholic, painful conversations.

They’ve shared their beds with increased frequency, these past few months. Not as lovers, but as someone to be there when they wake up in the dark. Ben had come to her first, pale and tired after an utterly sleepless night, worried of alarming his padawan even more but weary of loneliness. Fay had spent that morning watching him sleep. He seemed gentler in sleep. Sadder too.

Fay had been the one to approach him after that, or at least make the invitation. They would hold each other, exchange soft touches, soothing like you would a child, but he hasn’t kissed her, and she hadn’t kissed him.

They are both holding back, treading a fine line.

They the both of them, she thinks, have fragile, foolish hearts.

“I did not –“

“You did.” Fay retorts, cutting him off with a snort. “ That poor man was already overwhelmed and you went and acquired him a second padawan. A second Mandalorian padawan!”

“Mavi Var’de is not my fault.” Ben grumbles, and then melts into a moan as Fay works at his muscles, a little touch of the Force to her ministrations. “I wasn’t even the one who brought her back.”

Fay hums, feigning not to believe a word of it. He turns his head, revealing the curving edge of a smile, and light catches across the greying hairs at his temple, furrowing into warm cinnamon.

“What was it today, then, that had you so thoroughly abusing yourself?” Fay inquires.

“Padawan Tsui Choi.” Ben huffs, dropping his head forward again as she works across the base of his neck to the joint of his other shoulder. “We’re working on compensating for his lack of sight of the one side.”

“And?”

“And I’d say he compensates exceedingly well.” Ben informs her wryly. “He takes Master Yoda’s acrobatics to a devilish degree, which I suppose is only natural when one combines Ataru with Shadow-Walking, Force Structures, and a diminutive stature. Hell pity the fool that thinks _that_ padawan is an easy target.”

Fay chuckles with him, and he jolts when she finds a sore spot. Fay gentles it with a brush of healing and prods him to stretch. He does, drawing his arms up and arching his back while she smooths away a few light aches and hurts. He sighs softly when she’s finished and relaxes back against her, his heavy warmth settling back on her chest.

Fay blows a lock of his hair away from her face and shifts into a more comfortable position, wrapping her arms around him, letting her fingers splay over his sternum and trace patterns across silken scars across his side. Ben lays once calloused hand over hers, thumb brushing the back of her wrist, a gentle simplicity of simply being enveloping them both.

“Thank you.” He murmurs, breathing deep and even. “I’ll have to repay the favor.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Fay replies, leaning her cheek against his hair.

They rest for a while, but it never lasts – not with Council meetings and classes to teach, appointments to keep and missions always calling. But for the moment…

For the moment, they are at peace.

Fay sighs against his hair.

 _I should have kissed him_ , she thinks, as his breathing softens into light sleep. Contentment seeps through her skin; a warm, rosy blanket in the Force, making her just as drowsily relaxed for all that this – _this_ , felt far more dangerous than any kiss, than any coupling. _Better yet_ , she thinks, _the handsome devil should have kissed me_.


	3. Chapter 3

“ – _Bo-Katan and Satine_ _seem to be talking again_.” Jango reports, arms crossed irritably over the holo. Ben hums thoughtfully, perusing Obi-Wan’s progress reports while his _vod_ vents.

“That’s good.” Ben offers, glancing at the holo. Jango’s image glowers back.

“ _By talking, I mean they have a lot of hissing arguments over the comm that neither of them seem to want to explain_.” He grouses, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “ _Which I would leave them to, if it didn’t seem to be driving my_ Jorad’alor _to avoid_ me _._ ”

Ben frowns, lowering his datapad. “Why would she be avoiding you? I thought you two had reached an understanding after your very public display of commitment?”

“ _Fuck if I know_.” Jango bursts out, tossing one hand to the ether for lack of an explanation. “ _How am I supposed to handle this? I’m reluctant to intervene if it’s about parentage. I don’t think Satine holds a grudge against me for adopting her sister, but_ …” He grimaces, and Ben understands. The convoluted tangle of family knotted between the three of them was a tricky and delicate subject.

“Is it affecting the work you both are doing on behalf of Mandalore?” Ben inquires. That would be the greatest concern. Mandalore’s situation was dire, the sector years away from true recovery yet, but _only_ years, when it could be decades, so long as Fett and Kryze were diligent, unified, and successful.

Jango shifts. “ _No_.” He admits, and then pauses, expression twitching minutely with discomfort.

“You can admit you’re worried about them, you know.” Ben prompts, a smile teasing his mouth.

“ _Fuck you, vod.”_ Jango retorts, glowering again before sighing. “ _I_ am _worried about them_.”

Ben nods. “I would suggest you try and let them work it out for now. Just let them know – respectively - that they have your support. That your relationship with your daughter doesn’t interfere with your relationship with your _Jorad’alor_ , and vice versa.” That's the best advice Ben can give him, really. He's in an unenviable position with the two sisters.

Jango grumbles, muttering beneath his breath in _mando’a_ , and nods a short acknowledgement and gratitude. He mulls over his thoughts for a minute, and then they spend the rest of the call on updates of progress and complaints over disagreeable persons, and, in Ben’s case, jedi gossip.

“ – _how the hell – twenty-seven times_?” Jango snaps, torn with outrage.

“Gatalenta practices polyamorous marriages, and the tea ceremony – one of many the culture practices - that unifies the involved parties is quite complex.” Ben explains with mirth. “He’d hosted seven weddings before anyone caught the fact that he was accidentally indicating himself as one of those parties. I think it was rather _less_ accidental on the part of the seven wedding cohorts, but that is…. not uncommon. It’s considered good luck, among their people, to marry a jedi. Or two.” Ben shakes his head. “He accidentally married one of his fellow padawans as well.”

Ben had discovered that that had actually been _Siri’s_ fault, as Obi-Wan had only been assisting her in pouring for a larger wedding cohort at the time and _she_ had been the conductor of that ceremony. Strictly speaking, it was Adi’s padawan that had married Obi-Wan to eight of those twenty-six other spouses, and Ben made sure she took her fair share of teasing and grief for that.

“ _And that went over well with the_ jetiise?” Jango snorts.

“Oh, he was properly divorced.” Ben waves a hand. “I’ve told you before it happens to jedi quite often.”

Jango shakes his head.

They have to depart when duty calls, and Ben wishes the _Mand’alor_ luck with Bo-Katan and Satine.

Ben has an appointment to keep with Master Drallig regarding the future of the Battlemaster’s posting. Master Bondera was looking to be the prime replacement for Cin’s official retirement, though the twi’lek master wasn’t keen on departing from fieldwork. Ben was working with Drallig on perhaps assigning two more Deputy Battlemasters as well, Tholme and Master Narec being good candidates. The both of them agreed being ale to shift between masters would allow them more freedom for fieldwork, as experienced as they were and how in demand their skillsets were, but Ben can tell he is disheartened at the prospect of passing on the mantle, even with two bright padawans to train, one of whom would require quite the additional dedication to the study of the Force.

Still, his health wasn’t what it was, and the classes were proving difficult to keep up with. He was overextending, doing himself more harm than good. He had agreed that it would be better to leave with grace than after an inevitable collapse.

“Ben.” Mace calls out to him and Ben looks up, spying the Councilor and Master Gallia coming from the direction of the Archives. Ben looks between them and makes sure to keep his expression absolutely serene. Adi narrows her violet eyes regardless, as if suspecting the smirk beneath. Mace appears utterly oblivious. Or else deliberately ignorant.

Ben feels, deeply, for Knight Billaba and all her struggles. Mace Windu could be a stone wall when he wanted to.

“Mace.” Ben greets, bowing politely. “Master Adi.” They were friendlier, these days, the mandalorian and tholotian master, but not quite friends.

“Assignment for you.” Mace prompts, lifting a datapad. They were fresh from a council meeting, then. Ben lifts his own from his pocket, and Mace sends the file. Ben skims it.

“A Trade Summit?” He lifts his gaze briefly. He's been trying to catch up on galactic politics since his return from Mandalore, but there is also simply... so much else to be keeping up on. He's never sure if he's on the right track anymore.

“Contentions with new commerce regulations are increasing to a worrying degree, particularly along the outer to mid-rim.” Adi explains briefly, and Ben knows that the destabilization of Mandalore didn’t help such matters, when Mandalore would have been, _should_ have a been, the outer rims strongest voice in such affairs. “A committee has called for a summit on Chandrila, and requested a Jedi presence to… mediate talks.”

In other words, to keep talks from coming to blows.

Ben sighs. “And it had to be myself and _Qui-Gon_?”

Mace lifts a brow, and Ben grumbles beneath his breath. Adi just frowns at him. “You are both accomplished negotiators, and you’ve proven competent partners in the past.” She remarks flatly.

Ben gives her a flat look. “Yet you _are_ aware that we have very different approaches to handling such matters.”

“Precisely.” She retorts.

Ben concedes that point.

 _Politics_.

“I trust your padawans to keep you in line.” She adds, muttering. Mace snorts, a flare of warm _fond-humor_ being shed into the Force. Adi smiles, just a bit.

“Lovely.” Ben mutters. “If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to keep and lessons to rearrange.”

“Certainly.” Mace clears his throat, suddenly serious and polite again. “Just one more thing.” He fishes something out of his sleeve – a small silk satchet. He looks mildly confused as he hands it over, but Adi glances at it once with sharp clarity and then away. “Master Yaddle insisted I deliver this to you with your mission assignment.”

Ben takes it with a nod. No doubt Mace can sense the work of Shadows in the odd request, but not guess at the nuance of the meaning or purpose. He was a straightforward soul.

Ben tucks the sachet into his own sleeve and smiles, bowing a polite dismissal.

He doesn’t get the chance to investigate the tea sachet until long after his meeting with Master Drallig, first having been waylaid by happening upon Mavi Var’de being riled into a rage by Lady Livion, who couldn’t harm the girl but knowing the girl didn’t yet have the grasp of the Force to banish her without Serra’s help.

“I _miss_ Mandalorians.” Lady Livion had teased, with a cold sort of relish. “Though she’s hardly one of the crusaders of old, no? Such a _pity_.”

Mavi had been left in a steaming rage, and Ben had first had to calm her down, and then spent nearly an hour coaxing her into meditation before sending her back to Master Drallig with a brief lecture on walking away or, in Mandalorian terms, ‘finding back-up before getting drawn into an engagement she wasn’t prepared for’.

After that he ends up dealing with the Council of First Knowledge regarding Obi-Wan’s progress reports, moreover about how many times he’s rearranged his lessons and at the ungainly pace his padawan has taken to bowling through his education in the last quarter. Given that Ben is about to rearrange them again for their field assignment and he has no intention of passing on their lecture on the wisdom of patience and the true enlightenment of sedate progression( which he feels was more directed at him than his padawan regardless), this takes more time than he had anticipated.

He misses dinner completely, which puts his padawan on his case, because Ben had insisted Obi-Wan meet him for dinner to go over how _he_ felt he was progressing in his studies, and whether or not he was actually absorbing them or merely completing requirements. Ben has good reason for allowing Obi-Wan to push his studies in certain areas forward so aggressively, but he had no intention of allowing his padawan to continue to do so if it wasn't actually _helping_ him. Obi-Wan had returned from Mandalore with a humbled sort of zeal, and Ben had lightened his training load to see how far his padawan could take it and succeed. To be perfectly honest, Ben had benefited from the lighter training regime and his padawan being otherwise occupied himself, having needed the breathing room to regain his equilibrium. By the time they’ve hurriedly eaten and had a quick briefing, Obi-Wan is already rushing out the door for an evening seminar and Ben has almost forgotten about the tea sachet. 

He brews it with some bemusement, as the contents turn into a thick, fruity blend more than a true tea.

It’s not until he takes a sip that he recognizes it for what it was.

 _Afke_.

Ben swallows, repressing a slight shudder at the over-strong flavor of the kiffu brew, and eyes the sachet sitting on his counter. The pouch is undyed silk, as was proper. The ribbon tying it closed, however, was a bold, saffron yellow, the ends stained black as if by spilled ink.

Well.

Ben suddenly feels even less sanguine about being partnered with Qui-Gon Jinn for this mission.

~*~

It’s not the first time Trip has been late to a rendezvous. The Third of Shadows has left Quinlan waiting more than once, just as Quinlan has run behind a few times himself. It was nature of the assignment, the two of them constantly trying to track down, keep up with, and investigate the activities of their –

Quinlan has slipped a few times and gotten too close, close enough to see the zabrak darksider for himself, close enough to feel him, and the impressions make him shudder even now.

Too close to call their target ‘prey’.

But Trip has never been this late, never missed one entirely, and after four days of long waiting, Quinlan is about to pass the cut-and-move-on mark they’d established. He hasn’t had to do that before, and he doesn’t like it.

Quinlan’s job was to follow the darksider and pick up clues. Trip’s was to investigate what Quinlan brought him, digging in to acquaintances and organizations, slicing through data and deals and financials, trying to trace connections… they worked in tandem, but not necessarily together. It was safer that way, for both of them.

For a relative value of safe.

Trip is _good_ at what he does – worlds better than Quinlan. The things Trip had taught him, the tricks the Shadow still had up his sleeve, secrets unrevealed… Quinlan had been leery of this assignment from the start, but Trip had provided bedrock for Quinlan’s otherwise unstable experiences to build off of, even as annoying as the Shadow could be at times.

Quinlan trusted him.

That doesn’t stop the dread fear from winding around his spine, the restless anger bubbling up under his skin. The talisman sitting on the table doesn’t help, stirring the air with impressions, soaked in strange power. Quinlan glowers at it. He _hates_ the thing, useful as it was. Viscerally and completely. Hates the anguish and torment wrapped up in its creation, hates the glimpses of madness he gets from it, in amidst the flashes of dark intent, brutality, and scenery that help them track the darksider.

Quinlan hates that it can’t give them more. Hates that they’ve been on this for a year, and still all they have are scraps, the vague edges of a network, of a design, that refuses to truly take shape, a chaotic trail of events and locations that never seem to follow together to make any sort of sense.

Trip _still_ doesn’t have enough to provide any proof that the zabrak is something more than a mere mercenary assassin. Quinlan keeps swearing he can get closer, but Trip always forbids it. “Close enough to get yourself killed.” He’d say, shaking his head. “Not on my watch, kid.”

Still, he was starting to sound strained when he said it. They both knew that chances were they’d have to do something drastic to get what they wanted.

Quinlan has spent a lot of nights wondering if maybe his life is a price worth paying.

If he _is_ a Sith…

“And what if he isn’t anything more than he appears to be?” Trip would argue. “We can _deal_ with Darksiders. We’ve dealt with them for the last millennium.”

“What if he is?” Quinlan challenges.

The problem is, is that there are no good answers to that.

Frustrated with himself, with trips worrying absence and their lack of progress, Quinlan marches over to the table, grits his teeth, and picks up the talisman.

Seething hatred, _grief-guilt-wrath_ flood through him, just as raw and overwhelming every time, and Quinlan lets it bleed through him, pushing him to the brink of buckling under the onslaught, until the images come.

Whispers edge around his mind, distant wails, screaming, the echoes of pain, tended into hate, into rage – quiet. It turns quiet, stilling in a way it never has before. Darkness – stars, city lights glittering in the distance, skyline, palisades – ocean waves rolling with a distant hush.

Predatory focus.

 _Where are you_?

“Where are you?” Quinlan whispers, pressing through the vagueness of distance, drawing closer in the Force. He squeezes the talisman in his grip, frustrated, angered and impatient, and he pries at its making, trying to force it to give him what he needed.

They needed a breakthrough, they needed _more -_

 _Where are you_?

Blue domes over white spires. Statues with gold faces. Starjets-

Suddenly, Quinlan knows.

 _Chandrila_.

Prodding, pushing, _clawing-scrabbling-reaching-taking_ -

Triumph, hunger, savage success. Searing yellow eyes open, brittle teeth gleaming in a cruel grin.

 _‘There you are_.’

Quinlan sucks in a breath, a jolt of pure fear raking down his spine.


	4. Chapter 4

Sian leans eagerly over the table, watching Obi-Wan’s face as his hand comes up to hover in front of his mouth, ears reddening, brow furrowed in a mounting mix of embarrassment and consternation.

Finally, he can’t take it anymore, dragging his eyes up from the datapad.

“Sian.” He pleads. “ _No_.” His mouth works a bit, and then he just keeps faintly shaking his head. “You _cannot_ be serious. You can’t publish this!”

Sian slumps back against the booth. “Obi-Wan!” She protests.

Master Ben drops in beside her, datapad in one hand, cup of tea in the other. “Oh, I think you absolutely should.” He smirks, earning an appalled look from his padawan. “I think it’s delightful. Making our characters Echani was a nice touch.” He smirks. Sian _had_ thought so – the Echani, though matriarchal, were very much culturally similar to Mandalorians. As such, the Echani and the _Mando’ade_ had an _infamous_ rivalry.

Obi-Wan growls at that, dropping his datapad with a clatter and slumping forward. “She also made me the grandson of the secret child you didn’t know you left behind because you’re my time-travelling great grandfather on a Force-Sent mission to hunt down the people-possessing ghost of an ancient Sith.” He grumbles. “It’s _ridiculous_!”

Master Ben chuckles, sipping at his tea and grinning at Sian, eyes dancing. “Is my character having an affair with the Mistryl Guardswoman?”

“No, that’s actually Obi-Wan’s mother.” Sian grins back. Obi-Wan chokes. “You’re going to end up married to the pirate king.”

“Lovely.” Master Ben seems utterly tickled. “Though I have to ask, why is Qui-Gon’s character _like_ that?”

Sian blinks innocently at him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Master Nasaade.” She says. “Master Qui-Gon isn’t portrayed in my stories.”

Ben lifts his brows, giving her an amused, challenging look. Sian lifts hers.

“You’re _actually_ going to publish these?” Obi-Wan whines.

“Why not?” Sian shrugs. “They’re fun, and to be perfectly honest, the Order could use the income.” She would hardly be the first Jedi to provide revenue for the Order. They had a long history of authors and poets and artists whose works might be sold or auctioned and whose profits went to one beneficial program or another.

Obi-Wan scowls at her, but she can see his brain working as he fiddles with the datapad she’d lent to him. While they were all stuck together on the transport to Chandrila, she had figured it was a good time to get their opinions.

“You should give Quinlan’s character a kinder storyline.” Obi-Wan mutters, looking to her. “And can you stop describing mine like _that_?”

“As the grace of his generation? With starlight eyes and a pale flash of fire to his hair? As the-“

Obi-Wan groans, loudly, and swipes the datapad, tossing it at her. “Would you stop!” He blushes, glowering at her, and then his snickering master. “ _You_ are not helping,” He complains. “I get enough jokes that we look an _awful_ lot alike already.” He rolls his eyes, and Sian cackles into her palm. _Oh, Obi-Wan_ ….

“Well,” Master Ben replies, leaning forward with earnestness and mirth and a glinting light to his eyes. “I promise I’m not your time-travelling great grandfather.”

“I suspect a secret Jedi cloning program.” Sian interjects, just to watch her friend’s expression twist, though she earns a truly interesting glance from Master Ben too, before he turns his face away, humming noncommittally and sipping his tea. “What?” She teases Obi-Wan mercilessly. “Have you _seen_ you? I’d clone that.”

Master Ben sputters into his cup and starts coughing.

Seeing that they are both now red in the ears, Sian sinks back against the booth in satisfaction of a job well done.

~*~

The Trade Summit was to be hosted in Hanna City, the capitol of Chandrila, nestled on the coast between rolling hills and calm seas. Beautiful silver and white spires dominated the architecture, capped in vivid blue domes and peaks.

The jedi, arriving several days early, were just in time to catch the tale end of Hanna City’s Jubilation Festival, a late spring tradition when all the trees were bursting with beautiful pastel blue and yellow flowers. Streamers hung from windows, made of everything from wax paper to silk, inked with prayers to the departed and wishes for the new year. It was a time of celebration and remembrance and new beginnings.

They’re greeted at the port by an official welcome party, a pair of junior legislators who are too delighted to have been assigned to greet and escort the jedi. They’ve been given diplomatic lodgings in a rather lavish hotel not far from the capitol building. Ben has a quiet segue with the less excitable of their two escorts as to the tab and is relieved to discover that the entire hotel has been booked on behalf of the summit and that Chandrila, having volunteered to host, would not be billing the guests. Their escorts offer to take them on a tour of the city, expounding proudly upon the merits of Hanna City’s Opera House and the Institute of Antiquities, offering up complimentary tickets. Qui-Gon accepts them with a few neutral platitudes, aware that they will likely be well busy even before delegations arrive.

While Qui-Gon is politely trying to fail to commit to any such activities on that front, Ben has pulled Obi-Wan and Sian aside, quietly ushering them out to enjoy the parade and the evenings festivities.

“Really?” The devaronian padawan grins, having been peering out the windows at sparklers and chalk-painted faces and the rising glow of flickering candles.

“I’d suggest donning something easily washed.” Ben nods. “You do have to be presentable on the morrow, but yes. You ought to take the chance to enjoy yourselves.”

Sian squeaks joyously and bounds into the next room – hers. Obi-Wan, however, with a neutral expression, eyes his master with a serious inquisitiveness, a shifting anticipation about his person. Ben looks solemnly back. He’s noticed Obi-Wan’s moment of surprise when they’d descended onto Chandrila and knew it wasn’t the glittering line of the Silver Sea nor the stately beauty of the city that had caught him off guard.

“She will leave without you if you don’t hurry up.” Ben points out carefully. “You ought to change into something a touch more…. unassuming.” His black and white silks and his jade green _beskar’gam_ , with that copper mythosaur crawling up one arm, were hardly discreet nor casual. “You never know who you might run into.” He remarks casually.

Obi-Wan narrows his eyes. ‘ _You_ did _know Quinlan was here_.’

Ben lifts a brow at the touch of reproach in that. ‘ _I was warned he_ might _be, padawan_.’

Obi-Wan settles a little, that frown still prevalent in his brow. Ben sighs.

‘ _Which means_ …’ He prompts his padawan.

Obi-Wan flickers his gaze back into focus, puzzled for a moment before realization dawns and hardens. ‘ _That what he was sent after might be here too_.’ His padawan reasons out.

‘ _Precisely_.’

Obi-Wan clenches his jaw, paling a little. Ben offers him a grim smile and shoos him once more to at least strip off his outer layers and his armor.

Their mission was beginning to seem much riskier than it had appeared.

Qui-Gon eventually manages to extract himself and dismiss their escorts without crushing their overeager hearts nor causing offense, and he frowns as the padawans slip out. Sian is eagerly dragging Obi-Wan along, his black undershirt an accidental match to her sleeveless under-suit, over which she threw on a blush pink synth-satin jacket that Ben doesn’t _quite_ raise his brows at. He doesn’t miss, however, Qui-Gon’s defeated little sigh as she tosses him a wave and a grin.

“Was that truly a good idea?” Qui-Gon inquires, half a complaint.

Ben smirks. “Probably not, but it wasn’t a _bad_ one. They’re young yet. Let them be young for a little while.”

Qui-Gon grumbles at him. “We’re hardly _that_ old.”

Ben just huffs, at that. Some days, he really feels it.

~*~

“Why am I doing this again?” Obi-Wan inquires loudly, under duress, as he holds still for the painter, who laughs at him as they gently apply chalk-paint to his face.

“Because I would never be able to wash it out of my short-fur by tomorrow morning, so I have to experience this vicariously through you.” Sian says sweetly, holding four kabobs between the knuckles of one hand and trying to capture a image with a cheap holodisk in the other, pressing her cheek close to his.

The chalk-paint is an odd combination of clammy and itchy as it dries, and Obi-Wan has to blink to keep blue and gold dust from settling in his eyes. “ _I_ better be able to wash it off in time.” He mutters.

“Obi-Wan, smile!” Sian commands. Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, and then gives the holodisk the sweetest smile he can muster.

“That’s dangerous.” The face-painter mutters warmly, and Obi-Wan grins, though he feels his face heat at the underhanded compliment.

He lets Sian rope him towards the next booth, stealing his kabob back before the devaronian eats them all. The spices are different than Mandalorian fare, but he finds its rather good, if different.

He can feel Quinlan out there, close, but any prying at the bond just turned his sense of him to an illusive murk in his inward senses. In his outward senses, he couldn’t feel Quinlan at all. The kiffar had certainly gotten better at disguising himself.

There was something else though… an unease deep in Obi-Wan’s senses, just as elusive as his friend, but somehow so much denser, pressing on him like a weight he couldn’t define. Whatever it was, it was closer than he’d like.

Obi-Wan fears he might know exactly what it was.

He really doesn’t want to be right.

So he stops reaching and basks in Sian’s brightness instead, in the dancing elation of the festivals crowds, the juxtaposed contrast of melancholy and joy of remembered loved ones and the hopeful promise of a new year blossoming around them.

They get drawn into the parade, moving through a park full of marble statues with gold faces, through street markets and plazas full of streamers and dancers and games. Sian acquires them a couple flutes of some kind of bubbly neon champagne and the parade takes them down to the beach and boardwalk. Obi-Wan loses his boots when they get drawn into a children’s game with some very unfair and arbitrary rules, but they’re laughing too hard to protest, and the kids are delighted. Obi-Wan drags Sian to the water and they both let it run over their feet in quiet, deep swells, basking in the richness of the Living Force in it’s current before being swept back into the parade. They stop in one plaza to watch a stage play, part pantomime and part opera and Obi-Wan only remembers his boots after the fireworks have started. Sian waves him off, immersed in some odd game of chance with a few elderly folks, a twi’lek and two humans.

The beach isn’t _quiet_ – not with the bonfires and the music and the little boats being let out, lanterns flickering over the waves – but it’s quieter than when the parade came through.

He begs out of being drawn into a sand-ball game, pointing at his bare feet, which earns him a few good-natured laughs as they wave him on. He finds them dropped off the edge of the boardwalk and pours the sand out, fishing for his socks. He settled down on the edge of the boardwalk himself, watching the sprawl of life out across the beach, and the soothing roll of the ocean. He’s just tugging on his left boot, consigned to the sand between his toes, now squished into his socks, when a body settles down next to his, an arm wrapping over his shoulder and dropping down over his neck before Obi-Wan catches on, throwing his arms around Quinlan with enough force to send them toppling over.

Quinlan grunts, hitting the planks awkwardly, and Obi-Wan laughs into his chest, shifting only to pin Quinlan down, earning a very suggestive raised brow from the kiffar.

“I’ve missed you, you _shabuir_.” Obi-Wan grins.

Quinlan grins back, a bright flash in his dark face, and then bucks, twisting arm here and wrenching a wrist there and then Obi-Wan is the one flat on his back, but only long enough for Quinlan to flush with victory before hauling them both to their feet and yanking the younger boy into a crushing hug.

“I missed you too.” He utters, squeezing tight. He’s both leaner and bulkier than Obi-Wan remembers – baby-fat melted off his face, broadness and bulk added to his shoulders. His dreadlocks fall long, pulled back into a tail. For some inexplicable reason, he smells like clove and jetfuel, making Obi-Wan want to sneeze. Quinlan pulls back sharply, eyes roving his face. “Kriffing hells, Obi-Wan, you got _hot_. Nice paint.” He adds, reaching out to poke at his cheekbone.

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Que.” Quinlan seems relaxed, but Obi-Wan holds on tight yet. For all that he can see and smell and feel him, Quinlan is little more than a mirage in his senses, a strange twist of almost-maybe-what-if that doesn’t feel right. If it weren’t for the bond in his head, the leech of cold frost spilling into him from close proximity, he’d almost think Quinlan was an illusion.

A really fucking good one.

“You aren’t an illusion, are you?” Obi-Wan whispers anyways, because he knows he can’t always tell. The Nightsisters weren’t just able to trick his senses, they were able to trick his mind, to convince him not to question what his senses were telling him. 

Quinlan just flashes him an unnerving grin and steps back, offering out a hand. “Do you trust me?”

Obi-Wan scoffs. “Is that a question?” He retorts. He takes Quinlan’s hand, and the kiffar pulls him off the boardwalk, and slips into shadow.


	5. Chapter 5

“Why are you climbing over the balcony?” Ben inquires, leaning out the window to investigate the noise. It’s very late. Actually, it’s very _early_. Sian had wandered back in a couple hours ago, giggling, covered in gold glitter dust and swearing she’d spent at least an hour trying to find Obi-Wan before coming back. She’d been carrying her boots rather than wearing them, and the shiny blue jacket she had on was not the one she’d been wearing when she’d left.

Qui-Gon, having spent his evening pouring over dense legislation on trade regulations and treaties and economic census data, had been too tired to do more than make her drink a glass of water and go to sleep. She’d get a rudely early wake-up, no doubt, but she’d need the time to get the glitter off herself.

Obi-Wan pauses, one leg swung over the transparisteel barrier, the breeze tussling his spiky hair but his expression otherwise obscured by darkness. Ben gets a waft of sheepishness through their bond. “I shadow-walked into the wrong suite.” His padawan whispers. “All the rooms look the same!”

“It’s a _hotel_.” Ben points out.

“I know, I know.”

“You are getting far to frivolous in utilizing your talents, padawan. Why the blazes didn’t you just come through the door?”

Obi-Wan sighs. “Can I just – get inside first?” His padawan pleads.

Ben shakes his head. “By all means.” He mutters, and draws back inside the window, listening to his _verd’ibir_ sneak into the main living area of their suite and then into Ben’s room. Chandrila’s sense of propriety had seen to it that they all had a separate sleeping space.

Ben turns on a lamp, having been in more of a meditative trance than actual sleep, and looks his padawan over. “ _Gar vod_?” Ben murmurs.

Obi-Wan’s blinding grin is certainly answer enough – though his absence _had_ been telling.

Obi-Wan shucks his boots and climbs onto Ben’s bed, drawing is feet up and getting sand all over the covers. He has quite a bit, it seems, to report.

To the first, Quinlan had followed Maul here.

To the second, Quinlan’s Shadow partner was missing.

To the third, Quinlan had-

“He what?” Ben sucks in a breath, aghast and absolutely certain he could not have-

Obi-Wan scratches at the degrading chalk-paint on his face, sheepish in Quinlan’s place.

“The contact was accidental, and he was spooked.” Obi-Wan provides in defense of his friend. “He was just trying to cover his tracks.”

“So Quinlan Vos implied, to a _Sith Apprentice_ , that he himself served his own Sith Master?”

“They don’t have proof that he _is_ a Sith Apprentice.” Obi-Wan points out, frustrated at that fact because he _believed_ in Ben, and if Ben told him this was a Sith...the trust was flattering. The lack of evidence not so. “But… yes.”

Ben works his jaw for a moment, turning it over and over in his mind.

“That could be….useful, couldn’t it?” Obi-Wan suggests. “If nothing else, maybe we can send the Sith on their own wild bantha chase trying to find a rival that doesn’t exist.”

Ben swallows, and then sighs so very softly. “Quinlan might have succeeded in convincing them not to see the Jedi on their tail, but he may have just put an even worse target on himself. If they believe him to be a Sith Acolyte, then he does become a key person of interest if they do wish to – as you so gamely put it – pursue this wild bantha chase.”

“He’s aware of that.” Obi-Wan points out. “But he had to do _something_. He’s… he’s gotten really good at disappearing. He can make himself seem like an illusion, even when he’s not.” He says, like he’s trying convince himself it will turn out alright, that he doesn’t need to full on panic over the danger his _vod_ is in.

“Making it far more difficult to tell when he _is_.” Ben nods, approving, truly empathizing with his padawan’s emotional predicament. He’s been there himself, on both sides. Obi-Wan nods too, looking thoughtful, if troubled.

“From what he’s observed, it doesn’t look like this darksider knows much at all of Magicks.” The padawan remarks slowly.

“No, I don’t believe he does.” Ben says. Maul hadn’t, from Ben’s recollections, or if he had, he’d been singularly untalented in the craft, so much so as to never utilize it. “The Sith do have their own Magicks, however, a Sith Master is very careful about how much power they give their Apprentice, whether it be in agency, knowledge or training. The Rule of Two, you understand.”

 _One to embody power. One to seek it_.

Not that Darth Sideous ever held well to that. Nor, from an ideological standpoint, did he ever seem to train _good_ Sith Apprentices. Even – Ben’s mind scratches the next thought out before it forms, and moves on.

A Sith Master’s ultimate duty was to create an apprentice whose power and might would eventually eclipse their own. Sideous had never done so. He had crippled, in one form or another, every apprentice he had ever made, so that he himself could not be overthrown.

They had not been peers, nor students, so much as they had been _slaves_.

“ _Master_.” Obi-Wan’s tone cuts through the room, quiet but firm, and Ben blinks, shaking himself from the downward spiral of his thoughts, from the eddies of his darker emotions that had electrified the air and started to turn cold in the Force.

Ben breathes in deep, slowly and steady, while Obi-Wan holds his gaze with a hard look.

“Does Quinlan know _why_ our dathomiri acquaintance is here?” Ben inquires, as the miasma dissipates in the Force, burned away by Obi-Wan’s furnace-like presence and calm.

Obi-Wan offers him a flat, disgruntled look. _Can’t you guess_?

Ben sighs, rubbing at his temples. No doubt, the same reason they were.

The Trade Summit.

“Does he have anything _specific_?” Ben presses, irritable as he lowers his hands. “Is he here for intimidation? Blackmail? Sabotage? Murder? Is there a particular target? Is the entire committee under attack?”

“No.” Obi-Wan admits, faltering under Ben’s snippy, lecturing interrogation. “He doesn’t know.”

Ben strokes his beard, frustrated with the vagueness of the threat over their heads. “Lovely.” He mutters. They have a missing spy, a loose Sith Apprentice, and an entire theaters worth of politicians to look out for.

It was beginning to feel just like the old days.

He hadn’t missed it.

~*~

“So what time _did_ your padawan finally reign himself in?”

Ben draws in a deep breath, pulling it to the very bottom of his chest, and lets it out, easing the tensions in himself out with it. He peels open his eyes, curls his fingers around his cup of caf, and gives Qui-Gon a warning look. “Qui-Gon.” He states. “Good morning.”

Qui-Gon waits, utterly undaunted, expecting an answer to his inquiry, as sniping and superior as it had been, tone lofty with disapproval. Clearly, he was of the opinion that Ben had been too lax with either Obi-Wan’s restrictions or his sense of decorum.

Ben sips his caf and stares the man down.

Disgruntled with this, Qui-Gon eventually loses patience and opens his mouth to take a more direct approach – no doubt prepared to lecture Ben for not lecturing Obi-Wan.

Sian had already received her admonishment this morning, which she had neatly cut short by presenting herself as appropriately chastised, but also flatly informing her master that either he could continue to admonish her, or he could allow her to go remove the glitter, but they didn’t have enough time to accomplish both.

Not showing up to greet politicians and dignitaries with a sparkly devaronian padawan won out.

About that time Obi-Wan had made an appearance, earned a stern “Padawan Kenobi, how fortuitous to see you deigned to rejoin us.” and promptly removed himself once more to his room with a scathing flash of temper not helped by how little sleep he’d had.

Irritability, indignation, and old hurt boils up and spills out.

“I raised my first padawan to knighthood without your oversight, Master Jinn, I can well raise my second.” Ben cuts him off, and nearly bites his tongue over the viciousness with which that comes out. Qui-Gon looks startled, and Ben is immediately sorry. “ _Ni ceta_ – I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “I did not sleep well. I should not have….” Ben sighs, clinging to his cup of caf.

What little sleep he had gotten had been rife with the same nightmares he’d been having all week – of Naboo, of Maul, of Qui-Gon’s death, and Adi Gallia’s, and Satine’s. Obi-Wan’s presence had not been it’s usual balm, not when Ben dreamed of Maul killing him too, mocking him even though this Maul was not – not the other.

_If he dies, I wonder, will you die too?_

_I will **erase** you_.

Qui-Gon frowns, discomfited all the way around, but reaches forward and lays a hand on Ben’s shoulder. Ben has forgone armor as a diplomatic gesture, but he wishes now he hadn’t, regardless that there were few who would trust a _Mandalorian_ to mediate peacefully. Qui-Gon’s warmth soaks through him, as sure and steadfast as a river running, as warm and solid as sun-baked stone.

Ben leans into his presence. “Thank you.” He murmurs. Both of their padawans, he can sense, are hovering just on the other side of their respective doors, deciding whether or not intervention is necessary. As he relaxes, he can sense them pulling away, deciding it’s not. The rush of fondness he feels for them both spills out into the room. Qui-Gon, just as aware of their antics as Ben, snorts lightly.

“My padawan’s absence last night was not entirely accident.” Ben admits, looking up at the other jedi master. Qui-Gon’s ice blue eyes pinch faintly, and Ben feels his lips quirk up. Qui-Gon has just as little patience for the misdirective ways of Shadows as Mace does. “There are more players at work here than it might appear.”

“Aren’t there always?” Qui-Gon mutters, studying Ben’s face with a seriousness. Ben’s smile turns brittle and rueful as he nods.

Hard, unhappy acceptance colors Qui-Gon’s gaze before he glances away, drawing back from Ben as he makes the correct guess as to what players this cinnamon haired master in particular might be referring to.

“What can be done?” Qui-Gon utters quietly, posture stiff and imposingly aloof as he works within his mind on this new, harrowing revelation. Strangely, of all Masters, it was Qui-Gon who has believed him most easily about the appearance of the Sith, with the least amount of convincing.

“Nothing, until we know more.” Ben supplies the unfortunate truth.

The corner of Master Jinn’s mouth turns down. “Business as usual, then.”


	6. Chapter 6

Qui-Gon greets the representative of the Arkanis sector with a slightly strained smile, though he doubts the Arkanian notices, having dismissed him with his gaze halfway through the required pleasantries.

With delegates arriving in small groups throughout the days leading up to the Summit, the jedi were taking rotations between welcoming them and getting them briefly familiarized with their location and the expected proceedings with the assistance of the Chandrilan officials, and studying the dense mountain of contentious and verbose political quagmire that had brought the summit into being in the first place, familiarizing themselves with it before the representatives started hashing through it on the committee floor.

When the Arkanis party finally moves on, her turns and frowns at his padawan, who has been less than subtly giving him quizzitive, lingering looks throughout the day.

She lifts both brows at him.

“Yes, padawan?” He inquires mildly, internalizing his irritation until he can determine wether or not it’s truly deserved.

She blinks slowly, lifts her face a little and looks away with all the casual ease of the utterly unbothered.

He decides his irritation is deserved. “Sian?” He prompts.

She glances back at him. “Yes, Master?” She inquires.

“What?”

She offers another slow blink of those iridescent blue eyes, and glances away again. “It’s not my place.” She demurs.

Qui-Gon takes a deep breath and resists the urge to pinch his nose. He knows, without doubt, that she is certainly fishing for something if she is effecting _meekness_. It doesn’t suit her.

 _And yet_ , he thinks, but doesn’t sigh it out. Folding his hands into his sleeves, he gives her a pointed look. “Whatever it may be is distracting you and you are distracting me. Let’s have it out with and decide whether or not is or is not place-worthy after the fact.”

The coy satisfaction he senses from her proves that such permission to proceed is exactly what she wanted, and Qui-Gon’s pointed look turns into a warning one. No doubt she has prefaced herself with meekness because she is about to broach a subject he will find displeasing. She’s clever, his padawan, and decidedly sneaky. He would accuse her of being outright _manipulative_ , if Tahl hadn’t scolded him up one side and down the other for being all but unmanageable without a little ‘handling’, and informing him that the girl had damn good instincts if she knew how to work around his irascible pride.

The accusations had been unkind, but not, he thinks ruefully, entirely undeserved.

“You _do_ wish to be friends with Master Ben, don’t you?” She inquires.

Qui-Gon draws back a little, brow furrowing at the nature of the query. “We have a friendship.” He states. A complicated one, he will admit, and perhaps not as close as he might wish, but… “Why?” He inquires warily.

“Master, for a man trying to maintain a friendship, you have a singular talent for causing Master Ben and Obi-Wan offense.” She states bluntly.

Qui-Gon opens his mouth, closes it, and then scowls at her. She looks back unapologetic for her presumption. “This morning was merely a small misunderstanding-“ He stops talking, at the egregiously unimpressed look she offers him as she crosses her arms.

“I understand that you and Master Naasade have a complicated mutual host of personal issues, but it doesn’t help that you seem incapable of not antagonizing his padawan – who just so happens to be one of my best friends as well.”

“I do not-“

She growls. She _growls_ at him. “You _know_ rumors still go around, right? That our peers still talk about how appalling it was that _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ nearly got sent away, that he all but pleaded with a dozen masters to take him on, that Master Yoda set up a whole tournament just to get your attention, and even then it didn’t work. They _talk_ about the fact that Obi-Wan approached you again, after, and asked you to reconsider, to at least contemplate taking him on in a probationary status, and you-“

“You do not -” Qui-Gon cuts her off flatly. “ – need to remind me of what I said that day. I recall well enough. It was… indecorous.” He had been harsher than he meant to be, had taken out on the boy the temper that Master Yoda and his _harassment_ had stirred up. Qui-Gon had strictly refused to take a padawan, and to have a _tournament_ set up to make a big ado over a matter with which he had already and adamantly made his position clear –

Sian’s eyes flash, and she lifts her chin, dark lips forming a hard line. “You could, I think, try apologizing to Obi-Wan for it.”

“His fate turned out for the better, did it not?” Qui-Gon shakes his head. “There is little cause to dredge up old strife when the matter is well behind us.”

She growls at him again, iridescent blue eyes narrowing before she takes a deliberate half step back, draws in a deep breath, and wrestles her instincts and emotions under control, letting the worst of them dissipate as she sighs out. When she looks at him again, she is much more settled, less aggravated and more evaluative, more critical, something in her eyes seeming a little sad – no, Qui-Gon realizes with a sinking feeling. Not sad. Disappointed.

She meets her hands in front of herself and bows with grace. “Master Qui-Gon,” She states, her tone as formal as her actions as her gaze holds his, “ would you consider apologizing to Obi-Wan if for no other reason than because I am asking you to?” She requests.

Qui-Gon, taken aback by the sudden formality of the gesture, stiffens and holds his tongue. There is much he could say, much he would say, over such a request, such a display –

He opens his mouth and closes it again. Propriety overcomes all else. He meets his hands together in front of himself, and responds as it is proper to do. “I will consider it, my padawan.” He answers, just as formal.

“Thank you.” She replies, tone quiet, with none of the coy satisfaction she had displayed earlier at getting him to do what she wished. This particular issue really mattered to her, he senses, and his response on this particular issue, he had the impression, would not be so easily surpassed by her resilient nature as his other faults.

Quiet falls between them, and Qui-Gon swallows, not knowing what to say, after that. Pensive, they both turn back to their duties.

~*~

Obi-Wan turns from amusedly watching Master Ben get carried away in having a charming reuinion with Senator Organa and almost does a double take when he catches sight of the next party mounting the stairs of the Assembly House.

His bemusement is strong enough that it catches his master’s attention, which is helpful. Obi-Wan thinks he could use the back-up.

“Senator Bel Iblis!” Obi-Wan greets with pleasant enthusiasm, the Corellian Senator strolling almost jauntily, though Obi-Wan can sense some annoyance from him – likely, the delegation from the Trade Federation not far behind them. “Khagan Jai Sheelal.” Obi-Wan looks up at the imposing figure striding along-side the Senator, utterly dwarfing the Corellian contingent, and then – “Taria, Rudaban.” The padawans were a surprise. Taria’s golden eyes twinkle, and her kaleesh brother-padawan gestures his enthusiastic greetings. All together, their combined presence, as he tries to reconcile his surprise, is a bit much to contemplate.

“Padawan Kenob-“ The senator nods gruffly, only to be completely outvoiced.

“Dai Khagrah, Dai Karabacc!” _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal booms, and Obi-Wan is dearly glad his master comes up behind him in support.

“ _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal.” Master Ben rests a hand on Obi-Wans shoulder, bearing the greeting with aplomb and likely sparing Obi-Wan from being enveloped in an enthusiastic embrace. As it is, Jai Sheelal drops a heavy hand on Obi-Wan’s other shoulder, shaking him with pleased greeting. Somehow, the difference in himself between thirteen and eighteen seems to matter very little in the kaleesh warlord’s presence.

“Ancestors blessings be upon you.” Jai Sheelal nods over them both, yellow eyes gleaming.

“Thank you.” Obi-Wan and his master both reply.

“It is always heartening to see a few friendly faces.” Master Ben remarks, though his hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder seems to tighten with the near presence of Jai Sheelal. “Though I didn’t realize we weren’t to be the only jedi in attendance.” He eyes Padawan Damsin and Padawan Jai Soboc with curiosity and good humor.

Senator Garm Bel Iblis rolls his eyes, crossing his arms, and Taria grins, her teeth flashing in her warm brown face as she cocks a hip. “Threats against the senator have greatly increased. Feeling that this summit was a high risk target, his wife requested a little additional security. The jedi were pleased to oblige.”

Senator Bel Iblis colors a little bit, grumbling. “You could, I think, not explain to _everyone_ that my wife – _frets_.” He stresses.

Taria lifts a blue-green brow at him, and Obi-Wan watches the byplay with amusement. “Rudaban pulled you out of a speeder wreck two weeks ago.”

“I was fine.” The correlian represenative snorts.

“Senator, it was on _fire_ and abruptly thereafter _exploded_.”

Beyond them, the Trade Fed delegation is growing impatient, and Obi-Wan does his best not to scowl at them as he remembers his duties and starts to usher the Corellian-Kalee delegation inside, explaining the set-up – more to the Corellian and Kalee attendants than to the Senator and the Khagan. He leaves his master to deal with the mix of humans and nemoidians from the Trade Federation.

“I don’t suppose we can guess where the increased threat is coming from?” Obi-Wan inquires in a light drawl.

The senator snorts, and Jai Sheelal makes an odd, throaty noise which Obi-Wan supposes amounts to the same thing.

“We’re only standing about twenty paces from them.” Senator Bel Iblis mutters, still raking Obi-Wan up and down with a critical eye. “You make interesting friends, don’t you?” He states, gesturing at Obi-Wan’s _beskar’gam_. Obi-Wan smiles serenely, earning an annoyed huff. “Good to see you, kid.”

“You as well, Senator.” Obi-Wan bows, stepping back as their Chandrilan hosts take charge only to be caught by Jai Sheelal, who has, much to the apparent distress of the advisors most likely sent for the sole purpose of keeping him from committing bodily harm during the summit, no reservations over manhandling the younger jedi.

“ _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal.” Obi-Wan manages to get out more or less evenly, in spite of having been yanked around by his collar. “ I trust your family is well?” It still makes him flush, that the kaleesh have taken it as a great honor to name their children after him.

“We prosper, and my children grow well.” Jai Sheelal all but purrs, in his gravelly voice. “Far fewer are the battles my people face.” He intones proudly, eyes glittering as they flicker towards the Trade Federation with thinly disguised hatred. “But many battles more you have seen, yes?” He looks back, yellow gaze boring out of the skull-like mask, thick fingers brushing over Obi-Wan’s armor.

“I have.” Obi-Wan nods, finding his gaze drifting to his master. He’d seen only the edges and the aftermath of that civil war, truth be told. His master had been in the thick of it. Obi-Wan feels the stirrings of guilt, that he was _relieved_ he had not been thrown into the field of war, for all that it distressed him that his master had been. He still fears what war might make of him, having seen what it made of his master. “We go where we are needed.” He remarks, turning his attention back to the towering, powerful kaleesh.

“And here you are.” The _khagan_ replies, nodding. “As you were there for my people. A warrior in spirit, you were then. A warrior in experience, you are becoming.”

As Jai Sheelal looks him over, Obi-Wan senses pride, in that oddly introspective assessment – but sadness too. Jai Sheelal finds honor in battle, but it is, in his heart, no place for children. Obi-Wan had been very small and very young – too young – when they first met.

To a kaleesh, he likely seems quite small and young yet, despite nearly being full grown.

“This is hardly a battlefield, Jai Sheelal.” Obi-Wan remarks, trying to lighten the mood, internally ignoring the unpleasant reminder that there was very likely a Sith assassin stalking the summit.

The kaleesh rumbles deep in his chest, and one of the Chandrilan escorts misses a step, glancing back nervously. Obi-Wan offers them a pleasant, calming smile.

“Is it not?” The warlord rasps out, fingers curling as if for a weapon. “I have been observing, Dai Khagrah, and this I have seen;” The kaleesh growls lowly, “ Far more blood is there spilled by what is done in these _grand_ rooms by such _pleasant_ people than in any field of war upon which I have ever been, or by any weapon I have ever wielded.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, closes it, and swallows. He finds himself at a loss as what to say.

 _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal, he fears, is not wrong about that.


	7. Chapter 7

All the warning Quinlan gets is a shift in the air. He whirls, both drawing his vibro-knife and reaching for the nearest shadow – he is never, ever out of reach of the nearest shadow, these days – but a hand digs into his hair and an arm wraps around his throat, his opponent managing to keep behind him, and the curved blade that gets pressed against his jugular with pinprick softness is far more deadly than the one _he’s_ got.

“Sloppy, kid.” A familiar voice drawls in his ear, and Quinlan relaxes with a huff, leaning back against the slightly shorter frame of the person behind him.

“You karking son of a Hutt.” Quinlan mutters, tapping the arm around his throat and finding himself grinning from ear to ear. “What the hell happened to you?”

Trip loosens his grip, slinging his arm over Quinlan’s shoulders and wheeling him around instead, moving to sit on the nearest available surface – which, given that Quinlan was currently staying in the attic of a hostel for both privacy and anonymity, happened to be his cot.

“I was following a lead all the way to karking Eriadu – do you have snacks? I am _starving_.” He releases Quinlan and starts rifling through the younger man’s meager possessions, coming up with a paper sack of roasted _gooda_ nuts Quinlan picked up during the parade.

“Eriadu?” Quinlan repeats.

“Yeah.” Trip snorts. “Don’t you think it was odd, a trade summit regarding mid to outer rim systems being held in the core?”

Quinlan shrugs. “I heard a lot of them are less than happy about it.” He’d had other things on his mind, really.

“Well, it was _supposed_ to be held on Eriadu.” Trip says, pausing to munch. That would make sense, Quinlan thinks, as Eriadu lay at a key intersection in several hyperlane routes, making it a prominent trade depot for the Outer Rim. It was also a lot closer and lot more convenient for the relevant players, rather than making a long trek to the core. “So here I was, thinking I finally got ahead of our slippery dark friend for once, only to find out I was halfway across the karking galaxy in the wrong direction.”

Quinlan crosses his arms, leaning against the wall. “So why _wasn’t_ it held on Eriadu?”

Trip sucks in an aggravated breath and nearly chokes. “Kriffing _Alderaan_.” He coughs, spilling outrage and a competitive verve. Quinlan passes him a canteen from the crate serving as a nightstand/table, lifting a brow at the Third of Shadow’s demeanor. Trip nods his gratitude before gulping and then cringing. Quinlan smirks. Yes, he drinks his tea _bitter_.

When Trip can breathe clear again, he glowers up at Quinlan. “They have humanitarian outreach programs in the region –“ (they _would_. Of all the Core worlds, Alderaan had more investment and presence in the Outer Rim than anyone) “ - and presented to the committee that there are current tensions in the Seswenna Sector which would make it an unwise location for the summit, highly likely to instigate an attack. Certain parties still pushed for it, but with Chandrila stepping up to play a very generous host…” Trip trails off, gesturing vaguely to the fact that _well, here we are_. "The Chancellor was also supposed to attend. He still might, and I'm concerned about that. It's one thing for our murderous friend to be going after corporate executives and black market lynch-pins, it's another if they target the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic."

“If it caught you off balance, do you think maybe it did the same for our elusive acquaintances?” Quinlan offers, wondering _why_ Alderaan’s bait-and-switch irritated his companion so _personally_ , but not asking. As to everything else.... well, Quinlan kind of hopes the Chancellor steers clear. If he shows up... this could get very nasty, very quick.

Trip shrugs. “We can hope.” He sighs, running a hand through his springy curls, currently in the guise of a fellow dark-skinned kiffar. “If nothing else, I think it certainly at least pissed them off. Chandrila makes a much harder target than an outer rim outpost. With luck, they’ll slip up and we'll finally get something out of all this.”

Quinlan huffs. "Yeah." He mutters.

Trip eyes him. "How are you holding up, kid?" He asks, somehow both clinical and kind. Trip plays the fool a lot, but he was serious, at least, when it came to Quinlan's training, to Quinlan's well-being. "Anything happen on your end?"

"Er... about that."

~*~

Ben watches the seats fill in the assembly house with growing unease, which earns him pointed, concerned looks from not only his padawan, but Qui-Gon and Sian as well. Obi-Wan shuffles a bit closer, casually projecting his own presence until Ben can’t help but calm, bolstered by its steadfast warmth.

Still, as he looks around the room, Ben can see a host of players too familiar for comfort. He can see, here, in these people, in the issues at hand and the rising turmoil they represent, the seeds of the Separatist Crisis which had and could again engulf the galaxy, setting off the grand marionette play which had been the Clone Wars.

Dread burrows deep, settling like an itch in his veins.

He wonders, though, with a stubborn, recalcitrant sense of hope, where such roots would lead, without the eloquent, powerful and charismatic leadership of Yan Dooku to stir unrest into activism, and further on into uprising. If Ben has managed to move that player across the board…

 _Perhaps_ , he thinks. _Perhaps_.

But he doubts Darth Sidious could be so simply foiled. Where one pawn failed, he would no doubt find another to take its place.

But whomever they were, they wouldn’t be who Count Dooku had been.

 _Let that be_ something, He hopes viciously.

Ben, giving in to restlessness, makes a slow lap of the assembly floor, pausing by Bail’s contingent when he notes the serious furrow in the typically affable man’s brow, gaze focused with concern on a datapad, one of his adjuncts hovering. Ben accidentally catches Adjunct’s Bey’s eye, and the poor Royal Security Officer can’t seem to help but narrow his gaze at him. Ben smiles affably, but turns his attention back to his friend. “Bail, is all well?” He inquires softly.

Bail glances up once, a flicker of acknowledgment, and then back up again once it registers who had actually been speaking to him. “Ah.” He starts, turning the datapad down and returning it to the adjuncts hand. “Trouble with one of our humanitarian missions. There were losses.” He says, closing his eyes briefly before willing the matter away from the forefront of his concerns.

“My sympathies are with you and your people.” Ben murmurs with empathy, and Bail’s gaze lights on him with a strange intensity before softening.

“Thank you, Ben.” Bail replies quietly, giving him a reserved nod. He sighs. “There is a cost for the things we do, no matter our intentions, is there not?”

Ben nods slowly. “There is.” He remarks. “In that, I feel the Jedi and Alderaan suffer much the same.” He offers, a simple but enduring solidarity.

There is something inscrutable yet vivid behind the smile Bail offers him in return, and Ben finds it a touch disconcerting. “That we do.” Bail remarks, and at that point his attention is taken by another aide handing him another datapad and murmuring in his ear, and Ben moves on.

Obi-Wan wonders in the opposite direction, ultimately meeting him halfway, and something has caught his eye quite fixedly. “I would swear,” his padawan remarks, staring into one particular box on the gallery, “ that that young woman could be Mavi Var’de’s older sister, don’t you think?”

The universe, Ben thinks, could perhaps show him a little kindness. He turns to looks, and there, unlooked for and unexpected, is the young representative for the Cadavine Sector, her title displayed on the front of her gallery box – Cerasi of Melidaan.

Older than she’d ever had a chance to be, in his own time. Ben almost laughs, even as his heart lurches painfully, remembering hunger and hardship and conviction, trials of faith and the first touch of love lost before he even understood what it _was_.

It doesn’t surprise him at all that she went on to speak for her people on an even greater scale.

“She could be, yes.” He nods. They have the same sort of oval face, the same pin-straight straight hair, though Cerasi’s was a darker shade – copper, instead of strawberry-blonde, and her eyes green where Mavi’s were grey.

He observes her, for a moment, as she in engrossed in conversation with the representative from Onderan – one Mina Bonterri, whose name he lingers on as well, before pushing more unlooked-for memories aside.

Obi-Wan gives him a piercing, weird look, and Ben shakes his head. “They both deeply remind me of someone I knew long ago.” He says, and leaves it at that. Obi-Wan just sighs and nods, unhappy, but unwilling to pry.

The summit is eventually called to order – a long, tedious roll call taken, absences noted and proxies acknowledged.

The day rather diminishes from there.

~*~

“I really thought the little old woman from Ukio was going to climb over the railing and beat Senator Fre Ta with her bare hands.” Sian says over dinner, while Ben refuses the offer of wine and Qui-Gon frowns over a plate of scallops.

“Senator Fre Ta probably would have deserved it.” Obi-Wan replies, grumbling. “More than just Ryloth, the whole Core relies heavily on the Abrion sector for foodstuffs, but the gains they see - when they see _any_ \- rarely reflect the demand, which is appearing to be a more and more common trend, the farther out you go.”

“But the Trade Federation and the Commerce Guilds were right in that they weren’t going to get a better arrangement by trying to trade elsewhere.” Sian points out. “They have very little bargaining power, unless they resort to drastic measures, and the infrastructure on the rim is far less reliable for stable trade relations without the assistance of a power like the Trade Federation. Those parties have to get their value out of the system as well. It all feeds back into itself, and they claim that -”

“That’s because the tariff regulations and the hyperlane treaties are skewed – to say nothing of the influence of syndicates and quasi-empires that disregard republic regulation completely - _not_ because the demand doesn’t exist elsewhere.” Obi-Wan argues heatedly. “Which is the _point_. The commerce enforcement act - ”

“I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just saying –“ Sian reacts to his tone, her own voice rising –

“Padawans.” Qui-Gon barks firmly, _trying_ to enjoy his dinner. “ _Please_.”

“Sorry, master.” The padawans sulk, offering each other conciliatory looks before tucking in. Qui-Gon sighs in relief, and Ben can’t help a smirk, for all that his headache is no better. Even with four of them, it had seemed a near thing to keep some of the delegations from coming to blows.

And they had only just _started_ to wade into the issues. The whole tangle of economic bureaucracy and political gerrymandering and very real distress was an absolute quagmire of contradiction and fallacy and malpractice, in his opinion. Nothing but greed perched on the back of necessity and desperation.

It was stressful enough without everything else that Ben had on his mind, but somehow, the familiarity of Qui-Gon’s stuffy exasperation provided a bright spark of humor to the whole mess. At least in this case, Sian and Obi-Wan had each other for entertainment. In another life, in similar such situations, Qui-Gon would have been debating his padawan _directly_ , while they vented their own thoughts in the guise of evaluative discourse.

“It might help you de-stress to spar with me after dinner.” Ben offers.

Qui-Gon gives him a dubious look. “Sparring with you is not an activity that I find to be stress-alleviating, Ben.”

Ben feels his smirk growing a little wider, brimming with amused challenge that makes the other man’s ice-blue eyes narrow. “Your Soresu could use some work.” He remarks.

“So you have pointed out.” Qui-Gon grouses, peering at him in indecision for half a minute before giving in to a competitive nature and the fixed-eyed silent encouragement of his padawan. “Very well. Perhaps I’ll be too sore in the morning to attend.”

“You’re not that old.” Ben snorts. “And you don’t get out of politics that easily.”

They get permission from the slightly flustered hotel concierge to use the rooftop for their purposes, and their padawans join them for some easy warm-up katas.

Qui-Gon quails a bit more when Ben asks Sian if he can borrow her lightsaber. Obi-Wan offers him a slightly put out look before he realizes why he chose hers over his when Ben takes it in a reverse grip.

None of them wield a lightstaff, so jar kai, Ben thinks critically, will have to do for practice.

In spite of his clear dismay, Qui-Gon doesn’t protest. He does seem puzzled, however, a few minutes in, when he realizes Ben is going rather _easy_ on him for a change.

Slowly, they relax into a rhythm, and Ben increases the intensity of his attacks, focusing on the movements of Vapaad – the closest he can come to Maul’s mastery of Juyo, the seventh form’s harsher counterpart. 

Qui-Gon’s Soresu, as Ben presses the attack, backslides, first towards Ataru, and, when Ben chides him for this, reverting to Makashi, which is a compromise the Mandalorian jedi will accept.

It’s a more difficult practice than Ben had anticipated. The seventh form is far from his best, and he’s never attempted to truly practice it with twin blades, let alone with twin blades attempting to imitate a staff.

The spar winds up and then slowly back down, the both of them working up a healthy sweat before calling it a draw, rather than waiting for one of them to win the match. Ben returns Sian her pink-bladed lightsaber and they both prompt their padawans to give it a go.

“Have fun.” Ben adds, rather than assigning them a form to practice. Sian grins, flashing her sharper teeth, and Obi-Wan readies himself quickly.

They make a much more _lively_ display.

“Should I be concerned?” Qui-Gon inquires quietly, once their padawans are duly engaged. “You’re not usually so gentle with me.”

Ben glances his way. “You’ve improved greatly since our first spar, Qui-Gon.” He offers.

“Getting utterly trounced _does_ encourage improvement.” The older master replies dryly. “A jedi master has his pride.”

Ben snorts at that.

“Ben.” Qui-Gon sighs, puzzling him over with that ice-blue gaze. “ _Should_ I be concerned?”

Ben sighs. “No, Qui-Gon.” He shakes his head, and meets his gaze with a harder one. “You should be _prepared_.”

Qui-Gon draws in a breath, wondering and not asking what he may or may not have foreseen. What he may or may not _know_. “Ah.” He remarks simply, with a touch of grimness, and nods once.


	8. Chapter 8

“So, I can’t tell if that girl just fell in love with you, or if she fell in love with Duchess Kryze through you.” Taria remarks, scooping up Obi-Wan’s hand as he comes off the front steps of the hotel, a green cloak thrown over his shoulders in place of his armor. He was still wearing his lower vambraces and greave-boots, but the rest was a bit too conspicuous for wandering out and about in Hanna City discretely with an old friend.

Obi-Wan offers half a laugh, ears turning a little red. “I think Cerasi and Satine might get along well.” He offers.

“ _Right_.” Taria drawls. “So tell me more about _Satine_.” It was obvious to the Corellian padawan that her former crush was now quite clearly so in _love_. She’s a little jealous, honestly, not in the least because she had been hoping to get a few more kisses out of him, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. He had been adorable, this afternoon, gushing about the Duchess to the representative of Melidaan and the Senator of Onderon, the latter of whom was apparently was mentoring another female friend of Obi-Wan’s, from Naboo, and was beyond delighted in seconding the Mandalorian jedi in that the three of them simply _should_ meet.

Obi-Wan talks, about his feelings, about _her_ , with a quiet pride, a deep, bittersweet yearning; Taria lets him, studying the way his presence lights up, the way his eyes dance, and truth be told, if Satine Kryze was all and everything Obi-Wan believed her to be, Taria might be a little in love too.

“Wait – wait!” She grabs his arm, pulling him to a stop. “A tattoo? You – I have to see this.”

It’s small, resting on is collarbone, simple and elegant – eloquent, even.

She looks at him in disbelief as he rights his tunics, a blush well writ across his face by this point. “And you’re _not_ married?”

“Taria!” Obi-Wan protests. “I’m a _jedi_. I can’t – and she’s –“ He trails off and sighs, so despondent a sound that Taria can _feel_ his heartache. “There’s too much at stake.” He says, with a finality of vows made. “Maybe someday…”

“You know…” Taria murmurs, squeezing his hand. “When I said you were going to break hearts someday, I wasn’t talking about your own.”

“I’m not heartbroken.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, squeezing her hand back and looking up at the sprawling sky above them. “I love her, and she loves me. For now, that’s enough.”

“I suppose.” Taria agrees simply. She’s glad, in her own way, that she’s never fallen in love like that, never enough for it to _hurt_. “But if I keep thinking about it, _I’m_ going to be heartbroken.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He laughs. “You asked!”

“I suppose I did.” Taria sighs, shaking her head. “But still – you do nothing by halves! Honestly, Obi-Wan.”

He shrugs good naturedly, too handsome for his own good. Taria will admit his new confidence only enhances that effect. She takes a breath and runs her mind over the possibilities for their evening, now that one activity was certainly off the table. “How about – have you ever been ice-skating?”

“Er – no.”

Taria grins brilliantly and tugs on his hand. She knows just where they’re going to spend their free evening, then. “Excellent. _Another_ thing I can teach you.”

He blushes beautifully, and Taria hopes that Satine Kryze certainly appreciates that _someone_ taught Obi-Wan Kenobi how to kiss a girl.

~*~

 _Don’t you dare_.

Quinlan crouches on the roofline, opening himself up to the pulsing tug of the Dark Side, to the cold, electrifying certainty it offers. Everything aglow about the city seems to dim, other aspects taking the fore – decay and shadow, the frisson of temper and unrest fermenting around the summit, leeching into the streets, the delicate strands of its making spanning far beyond this robust little world, tangling through the galaxy. There are protests if not riots on many of the worlds represented here, and if Quinlan gives in, if he follows those insidious, gossamer threads, he imagines he could all but taste the anger that fueled them, the fear and suffering upon which they were built.

He doesn’t give in. He stands in the well of the Dark Side, but he doesn’t let himself go under.

It’s easier, with Obi-Wan here on planet, like a guideline back towards balance, towards the light.

Quinlan has been tracking Maul, though he’s quite slippery and elusive for a man who can’t Shadow-Walk. The darksider has been circling through the city like a prowling nexu, a shadow of rage and hunger that teases around Quinlan’s senses, brushing past him like a waft of oil and rot in the air.

Quinlan hates getting too close, not only in proximity, but in tracing the impressions the darksider leaves in the places he’s been, full of malice and…desperation. He was a seething mass of rage and fear and dangerous, cruel insight tightly leashed to an truly terrifying strength of will.

Even his echoes where formidable, and Quinlan grit his teeth and shivered, as each one left its touch on his spirit like a bruise on skin; small, indelible marks that, over time, were leeching more and more into Quinlan’s own psyche. Psychometrics were cautioned against focusing on individuals, fixating on them, for a reason. Not unless they wanted to dedicate their lives to that person, their sense of self.

Quinlan certainly doesn’t want to marry this guy. He has a feeling that Healer Weyl-Va is gonna have his work cut out for him, when this mission is over.

Maybe Quinlan will just have to go back to Dathomir. The Nightsisters fixed him before, from something rooted too deep inside his head. He might need them to do it again.

At the moment, however, Quinlan isn’t worried about that.

At the moment, Quinlan isn’t really worried, exactly, so much as about to be really, really pissed.

Because he’s just figured out that he’s following Maul, and Maul is following Obi-Wan and Taria.

 _Don’t you karking dare_ , Quinlan thinks viciously, and he feels the Dark Side pulse towards him, beckoned by impulse, fueled by violent emotion.

Maul’s silhouette, slipping between archways - paralleling the path the two padawans were taking down the street – flinches. Stops. Turns, and those searing, blood-shot yellow eyes find Quinlan unerringly, mouth twisting in a snarl, which shifts into a grin.

The zabrak cocks his head, glancing in the direction of the jedi, and then back up at Quinlan.

He turns after them with a dangerous jaunt, and Quinlan doesn’t remember choosing to move, before he’s down there on the ground, shoving the zabrak into a marble wall with a vicious, possessive snarl of his own, power running through his skin with a frisson.

“Is that all it takes to get your attention?” the darksider croons, hands wrapped around Quinlan’s wrists, _just_ keeping the kiffar from strangling him.

“Oh, you have _had_ my attention.” Quinlan croons back furiously, the foul reek of the darksiders person – of his Force presence – burning acidly in his senses. “But the jedi are _off limits_.”

“Hm.” Maul pouts, before smirking in self-satisfaction for having riled him up, for having drawn him in. “I _know_. I'm not here for them, but why waste an opportunity? I was curious…. _friends_ of yours?”

Maul lunges with a sudden burst of power, throwing Quinlan back. He lets the blow carry him right into shadow, and catches his feet at the other end of the alleyway, glaring across at Maul, who whirls with a snarl of rage, frustrated to be so outmaneuvered so easily, raring for a good _fight_. Quinlan knows better than to give him one. The zabrak may seem impulsive, but power falls off him in caustic waves, wild but potent, and Quinlan has seen enough of his bloody handiwork to know not to underestimate the darksider’s training.

“Tell your master, Witch-Spawn, to mind his impertinence.” Quinlan drawls with cold disdain, letting his voice echo and whisper as it carried down the alley. “And yours. Mine is losing patience.”

The air around Quinlan shimmers, a violent red, an illusion only, but a hellish one, as he seems to vanish.

“Would you not run away!” The zabrak howls at empty air. “Perhaps, if you are so keen on the message, so _concerned_ , you might want to meet him _yourself_.” He paces back and forth, watching the shadows with flickering wariness and ire, and Quinlan smirks to himself.

 _Say something_. Quinlan wills, watching his opponents wordless outrage take form. _A name. A planet. Anything tangible_.

But the zabrak doesn’t. He gives up his slavering, taunting stalk of the jedi, and disappears deeper into the city.

Quinlan curses.

~*~

Lachas watches the waves curl up and roll onto the beach, water rushing, falling, spilling forward until it swarmed over his feet. A bird swoops in the air, giving a trilling cry, and the breeze tastes of salt.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Lachas snaps, feet digging in to the sand as he turns around, looking for the culprit. “I am on duty!”

“You’re overworked. You needed a nap.” ‘Trip’ remarks casually, grinning up at him from a blanket on the sand, holding out an iced yoghurt as a peace offering. Lachas marches over and takes it, even knowing its not real. It’s lime flavored, with no added sweetness. “And the Senator is fine. You’ve got plenty of security on him.”

“He never _heeds_ his security!” Lachas retorts in respectful outrage. He genuinely, truly _liked_ the Queen’s husband, but the man did not make their jobs less stressful. “What do you _want_?” He demands, as the wave rolls up again, and the bird swoops down, giving another trilling cry.

Trip smiles, that boyish, charming smile which remained regardless of what face he was wearing. “ _Eriadu_.” He states.

“Public record.” Lachas retorts, firmly refusing to offer up any more than that. They were _not_ working together. “Try again.”

Trip pouts. “Alright, fine. Is the Chancellor going to visit?”

Lachas hesitates. He sighs. “We don’t know. It’s a possibility. The Chancellor is really digging in on current economic issues, particularly with the Trade Federation gaining so much power of late and with the unexpected fall-through of the economic proposals in the last quarter session. If he’s on his way, his security is keeping it tight, but my gut tells me that Vallorum _wants_ to be here.”

“We don’t _like_ this, Bey.” Trip mutters out, ruffling a hand through his currently dark curls. “Too many players, too much pressure in one place.”

“Join the club. Anything you’re willing to share?” Lachas tries.

Trip offers him another smile, lifting a judgmental brow before shaking his head. “Nothing I’m allowed to part with that I think you could use. You?”

“The same.” Lachas snorts, thinking of the coils upon coils of political drivel and legislative data, lists of neatly tied up scandals and conveniently missing culprits and discarded lawsuits piling up in secured vaults, all elusive hints and half-clues, all tilting toward some great, sinister, inevitable _something_.

Senator Organa kept on guard, Alderaan’s spy network kept on digging, and Queen Breha, well – Queen Breha. She was doing whatever she deemed necessary.

Lachas sighs, eyeing Trip. Spies, the both of them.

“Best of luck.” Lachas mutters.

“Force be with you.” Trip offers back.


	9. Chapter 9

“ – Cato Nemoidia does not own the Trade Federation! You overstep yourself, Gunray!” Ben glances over at a hissed argument among the Trade Federation’s delegation, an angered Kuati representative red-faced as he argues up at the taller nemoidian, a frail looking, sallow-skinned Bith glancing between them unhappily, the lone outlier among their party and seeming very poorly for it.

Ben does not know whether to be pleased or concerned, that the Trade Federation appears to be suffering from infighting in amidst its galactic power grab.

“I have done nothing in conflict with our interests-“

“ _Our_ interests? You have all but set –“

Ten days into the summit, and nearly twice a day they had to call these recesses, when the conference floor devolved from issue and debate and proposal and counterproposal into sniping and petty bickering. Ben _was_ enjoying watching Qui-Gon struggle to reign in Sian Jiesel, who was too clever and too creative with her words by half, but he was less enamored with having to wrangle his own padawan. Oh, Obi-Wan never _outright_ said anything he could be reprimanded for, but – well, suffice to say _Ben_ knew _exactly_ what his padawan was doing and what he meant when he did it. Figuring out how to call him on it – because it was certainly _not_ helping - was, unfortunately, a work in progress.

Such antics only added fuel to the fire that was the Kalee and Correlian delegations, who were in turn contrary to both Republic oversight and the Trade Federation, even when both said institutions were in conflict themselves over who had what powers and what funding went where and to whom and – a great many other things; Bail Organa was caught up trying to prune away the Corporate Sector’s influence in the senatorial arena, which had earned _him_ contention from outer rim representatives such as Cerasi and Bonterri, who were less concerned with what the Trade Federation and the Commerce Guilds and their alliance of monolithic business entities were doing in the house of politics and more concerned with what they were doing in the farther reaches of the Republic; and all of them were getting increasing railed against by the Abrion Sector and their small coalition of ‘bread-basket’ systems which being tread under the heels of such arguments.

Trying to mediate this was proving to be an utter nightmare for the two jedi masters, particularly when, if they were perceived to perhaps overstep in any capacity, the current affairs of the Jedi Order - who wanted little to nothing to do with this – were brought up and lambasted.

Which of course only set the padawans off again.

It is into this _mess_ that, with neither pomp nor even the courtesy of _warning_ , Chancellor Vallorum steps.

Qui-Gon brightens with relieved delight – he and the Chancellor have long been friends, after all.

Ben, pressing back a headache, grumbles beneath his breath and very nearly goes in search of a stiff drink.

He might have if Obi-Wan hadn’t made right for him, worried about something else entirely – namely, about the presence of the Chancellor of the Republic and the Sith Apprentice (alleged, in the eyes of the Order) in the same place.

“To be honest, padawan mine,” Ben mutters, brushing his thumb across the hilt of his lightsaber as it croons at him, “ an explosion would be a great relief, at this point.”

Obi-Wan looks at him sideways, sighing. “ _No_.”

~*~

The Chancellor has been present for just under twenty-four hours when a high-credence bomb threat has all of the delegate parties escorted back to the hotel under enhanced security.

The delegates are all mingling through the common areas of the hotel – continuing personal debates in restaurants, taking personal recesses in the orchid gardens or the resident spa, some even just pacing the lovely but seemingly endless, identical blue on gold on white corridors.

Many of them chafe as the uncertainty of the potential threat turns into the boredom of simply waiting for news. Chandrilan Security asks them to be patient.

Qui-Gon spends a good twenty minutes in the lobby observing a bizarre and lively conversation between Khagan Jai Sheelal of Kalee and the young representative of the Cadavine Sector, Cerasi of Melidaan, regarding their personal experiences and observations regarding the battlefield versus the political arena.

Cerasi catches his gaze at one point and nods politely at him, offering a dry smile that seems more settled in her face than the brittle facsimile it had been when he’d known her as a fourteen year old revolutionary. Qui-Gon nods back and moves on, wondering if he might be able to catch a few moments with the Chancellor, whose security had him sequestered away in a private lounge on the twelfth level but who was still making appointments with members of the conference. He stretches his senses out briefly as he makes his way towards the lifts, seeking his padawan, whom he had last seen darting into the buffet to stop an altercation over a cheese cart.

He gets the brief impression of herself and Padawan Kenobi and playing cards.

He also gets a quick brush of Ben’s attention, the other master having felt him reach out, prodding back with a quick, concerned inquiry.

 _All is as well as it appears to be_ , Qui-Gon impressions back, though at that very moment the thought itself seems to curl back at him with a sense of unease, and a prickle breaks across his skin.

The lift has just started moving when the power whines, the lights flash, walls humming. The lights pop –

And the power dies.

The entire hotel goes dark, followed by the whirring, heavy drum-drop of blast shutters falling across the windows and exits.

_Whirr-ba-da-whum-click._

_Whirr-ba-da-whum-click._

_Whirr-ba-da-whum-click_.

~*~

Ben jumps to his feet, setting his cup down with a clatter as the lights black out and a moment later, a heavy durasteel shield drops over the wide windows and the balcony door of Bail’s suite.

“That doesn’t seem good.” Bail murmurs simply.

Ben gives the senator a pointed look, and Bail _shrugs_ as his security starts sweeping the edges of the room and trying to operate their comms.

Comms are down.

Well, Ben thinks critically, this explains why the bomb threat had felt so very _off_. The Assembly Hall was expected to be the obvious target – they were all guaranteed to be together, and the Hall itself was a symbol for any discontents who might wish to send a message. Two for one, as it were. The hotel’s security had hardly been lax, but it had been a less apparent target. Ben scowls as he considers it, because it seemed… either brilliant planning, or exceeding poor. The delegations were all over the place, hardly anyone was in their rooms – there was no knowing who might be where. If they had a specific target in mind – they certainly hadn’t set themselves up for making the job easy.

But maybe it was more than that…

The floors rumble, and back-up power flickers to life, back up lights spilling unexpectedly from the corners.

Then there is a large popping sound, a muted rattle, and shouts can be heard. A shrill alarm starts wailing, the fire suppression system going off.

“Exterior exits are all sealed, sir.” One of Bail’s people reports sharply, with the distinct twist of displeasure to her tone. Ben grits his teeth, feeling the chaos in the Force – fear, anger, confusion.

And then Ben feels _him_.

A bitter, black sun of cold, writhing malice and savage anticipation; ready to hunt, to kill, to cause _pain_ -

 _Maul_.

Ben gasps as the Force cries out, wrenched and wounded by the Sith’s unleashed presence, screaming with the _pain-hate-fear-pain-hate-fear- **rage**_ that fed his parasitic connection to the Dark Side.

Anger pulses through Ben's bones, burning deep and calling out. He can feel Qui-Gon’s sudden shock and flinch, Obi-Wan and Sian’s sudden flare of alarm and panic, can sense Maul sense _them_ -

“Ben?”

Bail startles him, and Ben grabs him roughly and almost slams him down to the floor before realizing whose arm it was he’d just nearly wrenched for the terrible crime of being _concerned_.

“Ben.” Bail repeats seriously, olive face turned firm and worried. He gently removes Ben’s bruising grip and then takes the jedi by the shoulders. “ _Breathe_. What is it?”

Bail is calm, steadfast, _focused_.

Ben sucks in air, trying to wall away that tide of hungry malevolence clawing through his senses, needling at his skin and his thoughts, and tips forward, just enough to press his brow to Bail’s, just enough to connect, to ground himself in the Alderaanian’s resolute _light_.

Several of the security officers shift in uneasy concern. Bail just lets out an odd puff of air and keeps holding him steady. “Ben, what is it?” He repeats.

Ben draws in another breath, feeling his shields hold, and backs off. “Senator, kindly do me the favor of staying here and staying on guard.” Ben marches for the door.

“Ben!” Bail reaches after him, exasperated, and Ben gives a hard look to first the Alderaani security team, and then ‘Adjunct’ Bey. Ben turns to his friend, offering a pinched smile.

“For your safety, Bail, and my peace of mind.” Ben pleads gently, knowing that the other man wants to help, but with this – no.

No.

Ben shakes his head, draws his lightsaber, and shunts the reluctant door open with the Force and the sharp jerk of one hand.

‘ _Obi-Wan, you and Sian get to the Chancellor_.’ He projects. ‘ _Defend him, padawans_.’

‘ _Master, is that_ -‘ Obi-Wan’s mental voice all but leaps out at him.

‘ _As you are told, Obi-Wan_!’ Ben reiterates his command firmly. ‘ _Qui-Gon_ -‘

This is trickier. He has no bond with the other master, and Qui-Gon has never been the best with this form of communication. At the very least, all Ben knows is that, as powerful a broadcaster as Ben himself is, Qui-Gon Jinn _will_ get the message.

How he wishes to respond and whether or not he _heeds_ it – Ben can only hope.

‘ _Find me first_. _You and I will go after the Sith **together**_.’


	10. Chapter 10

“What just happened?” Sian growls.

“I told you it wouldn’t work.” Obi-Wan replies, one hand absently on her arm, keeping track of her position more than anything else. Between the shrill alarm and the uneven lighting and being forcibly pulled along in a Shadow-Walk, he was a little disoriented.

“But why?”

“The rooms and corridors are too similar.” Obi-Wan shrugs irritably. “It just doesn’t. There’s no – I don’t know, _feeling_ to it. Nothing substantial to get you where you want to go. Maybe if we knew of a particular statue or something…”

“So what do we do?” Sian demands, temper snappish with unease. “It’s going to take forever to get to the Chancellor.”

They were levels away yet, and the both of them could feel it – that dark, icy miasma, thick in the Force, blinding and nearly suffocating. It didn’t help that they could literally taste smoke from a fire somewhere, from the explosion they’d heard, maybe, and that so many people were panicked. The sensation of it bled into the Force, seeped like fog through Obi-Wan’s senses, pressing against his shields and trying to take hold.

“We’ll try again. It’ll be easier if we can at least get closer, even by accident.” Obi-Wan suggests, gripping her arm more firmly.

Sian nods sharply, a quick assent, and Obi-Wan leads this time.

They move quickly up to the nearest doorway, checking the numbers.

“We’re on the _same_ floor.” Sian bursts out, frustrated. “We hardly went anywhere!”

Obi-Wan was really beginning to hate this hotel.

They tried again.

And again.

Their third attempt brought them into a corridor glowing with smoldering flames, the air thick with smoke and too little oxygen. A second alarm goes off – detecting their presence, their need to _breathe_ – and the atmospherics pump in air for them, making the fire bloom. They bolt –

Obi-Wan lurches into the wall, coughing. Sian staggers against the nearest doorway, and Obi-Wan turns at her spark of surprise.

“We’re almost there!” She exclaims, turning back towards him and drawing her saber. Obi-Wan waves a hand at her, because they can shunt the doors open, they aren’t going to _cut through the floors_ –

“Almost.” A deep, soft sneer. “Not quite.”

The padawans both startle, taking an instinctive defensive stance beside each other.

At the other end of the corridor, emergency lights leaking around a menacing silhouette, stood an unfamiliar tattooed zabrak.

Obi-Wan ignites his jade-bladed saber, and Sian’s burning pink blade joins it a heartbeat later, sending clashing cascades of color down an already uncertain corridor.

“You are _not_ getting to the Chancellor.” Sian snarls, a brittle edge to her posture as the brunt of his brutal, festering presence bears down on them.

Obi-Wan’s heart is pounding.

The zabrak – no, the _Sith_ – chuckles, too indulgently amused. “Oh, look at you. So _brave_.”

Sian growls, baring her sharper teeth, and Obi-Wan tightens his grip on his saber. It pulses in his palms; a bristling ember of heat in his clammy hands, the melody utterly in sync with his pulse, the drumming a single thunder, the teasing melody narrowing to one whispering focus.

 _This is my purpose_ , the blade seems to sing. _This is as we are meant to do_.

To stand here, between the galaxy and the Sith.

Obi-Wan Kenobi _is_ standing here, and he’s terrified.

And those searing yellow eyes, touching on him, black and red face twisting in a sneer – they _know_ it.

Those lips curling black over fetid teeth – _mocking_ him - send the thunder in his chest, drumming in his bones, just _roaring_ , filling him with a brimming bristle of hot, righteous anger.

Obi-Wan takes a breath, feeling the Force within himself; untouched, untainted - rising up, like a tide surging, like a fall about to spill over, a storm in motion –

“I’m not allowed to hunt you, but when you are _right_ in front of me…” The zabrak moves, a fluid, utterly confident motion, and two red blades ignite in a spear. “How am I to resist? Come then, little jedi. Are you ready to die?”

“Buddy,” Sian snaps, twirling her saber back into her signature reverse grip, raising her bracer forward. She lifts her head, iridescent blue eyes shimmering, and falls into a posture ready to _spring_. “ - you talk too much.”

She glances at Obi-Wan, her presence as brilliant and verdant as a summer glade in full bloom, _heady_ with life, burning through the cold and the fear like sunshine through morning frost, transforming decay into purpose. Obi-Wan takes strength from her and lends his own, and steps forward. He steps past fear, past doubt – what he feels in this moment doesn’t matter. What he wants, what he needs – it does not matter.

They are here.

What must be is all there is, and this –

They must.

The two of them shine side by side – in sync, in balance. They are just, and bright, and strong. But the both of them know -

The zabrak snarls.

The Dark Side swirls around them, threatening to snuff them out, and the both of them know that for all of their brilliance, for all of their boldness –

The Dark Side was more than prepared to meet them.

~*~

Qui-Gon, rather than cut his way out of the lift, forced the emergency hatch open and, with a little judicious application of the Force, used the lift tube to essentially jump his way up the levels. He was far more confident in moving applications of the Force than in the new discipline of Force structures, which grated against the fundamentals he had been taught as a youngling and padawan. He knows he was far from the only Knight or Master to feel the same.

He knows Ben is somewhere much farther above him, and the darksider – the one Ben had claimed was a Sith, though the thought shakes Qui-Gon deeply – could be anywhere. Qui-Gon is finding it very difficult to discern a source for that flood of malevolence which seemed to fill the halls as sure as smoke, thick and oppressive.

Still, he breaches the lift tube and forces open an exit on one of the common levels, feeling a reat many terrified and injured persons trapped there, many of the restaurants ablaze, smoke boiling out of glass entrances and painting the arched central roof with oily soot. Shattered transparisteel glitters across the floor, reflecting fire and carnage, and injured people either lie prone or else huddle as far from the flames as they can get.

“This way!” Qui-Gon calls, stepping into the fray, using his stature and voice to their best effect, putting a little bit of strength to the call and suggestion to draw their attention, to encourage cooperation through their panic.

People limp and hobble towards his figure, having found their other exits blocked or barred from them. Qui-Gon helps move those both bloody with injury and bones and those insensate with terror, encouraging them to climb or else be carefully lowered not the level below.

It was unfortunate that the unimpeded drop of the empty lift tube terrified many of them just as much as the fires and explosion had, but a few jedi mind tricks usually got the job done.

The heat and smoke take their toll, scalding and strafing his lungs, making him cough, sweat rolling down his brow, down his back. He gets as many out as he can, but the cold touch of death tells him for some, he has been too late.

He can repress the fire some, but with it fueled by whatever remained in the kitchens, it was a futile effort. Once he got the people out, the fire suppression system would have better luck.

‘ _Qui-Gon_!’

He almost staggers at the sharp mental jab – does stagger, with the weight of the nemoidian he was assisting whom – he thought rather uncharitably – needed far less assistance than he loudly wailed for. His injuries were minor. Still, Qui-Gon obliged, if only so he may help the next individual more expediently.

Qui-Gon grits his teeth and tries his best to impress upon the other Jedi master what his curreny occupation was.

All he receives in return is a wealth of bitter frustration.

But minutes later the Mandalorian Jedi is bursting through the smoke between Qui-Gon and the lift – he must have come down the same way Qui-Gon went up – and charging on him, lightsaber in hand. “Qui-Gon Jinn, can you never be where you ought to be?” Ben demands angrily. “We don’t have _time_ for this.”

“These people need help.” Qui-Gon protests hoarsely, coughing as Ben takes the frail, injured cook from his arms and carries them in his stead towards safety.

He lags behind them, the fire climbing the roof, bits of molding and pourplast melting and breaking off, falling down over their heads. Ben unburdens himself at the lift, handing the injured cook down a bit brusquely, and returns for him, dragging him along.

“There is more at stake here.” The cinnaman haired jedi says, tone cutting sharply.

Qui-Gon glower at him, still trying to catch his breath. “There are…. _lives_ at stake _here_.” Qui-Gon challenges him. “And _all_ of them matter.”

The look Ben cuts at him is a maelstrom of bitterness, anger and inexplicable, distressed guilt, his expression cut from stone. He nods, one tight acknowledgement, and drags Qui-Gon along regardless.

Whatever the other man was thinking, Qui-Gon couldn’t fathom, but he had the apprehensive feeling that his fellow jedi was not thinking _clearly_.

~*~

Sabers scored the walls and floor, caught by tight quarters, leaving black trails that glowed faintly orange until the heat cooled. Blades crackle and crash, interspersed by their own harsh breathing and the pounding the their adrenaline fueled, racing pulses.

Sian grunts, flipping in a tight, narrow arc, all too aware of the lack of height she has for the ceiling. The back end of the red lightstaff skims just past her shoulder, and her heart skips a beat as she lets herself fall, twisting sharply as she brings her plasma buckler to bear, landing behind the zabrak while Obi-Wan kept him busy.

The darksider slams forward, sending Obi-Wan staggering back and then he wrenches around as Sian gets her saber up, just barely strong enough to stop a blow that would have taken her head off.

Kriff, he’s _strong_.

They bare their teeth at each other.

Sian sucks in a breath, ducks and lets her saber die, throwing herself forward with a push of Force-enhances momentum.

Her shoulder catches him in the hip, and Sian digs her fingers in, ignites her saber, and –

She’s wrenched away, only aware of it as her head cracks against the wall with an explosion of silent agony that temporarily swallows her every sense before it fades to shock and pain and she lunges to her feet, refusing the let the world bend and fade, letting the Force flow through her, carry her, make her more than her body’s limitations.

She’ll pay for it later, but she’ll worry about that if she survives.

Obi-Wan is up again, his dark jade saber a whirling wave of light, barely holding back the devastating, hammering blows of the darksider’s red blades.

“Fiesty, but _weak_.” The zabrak comments, sneering as he taunts the young man, driving him back. “Come now, try _harder_.” Obi-Wan throws himself back at him all the more admantly.

The zabrak yanks back his offense, pulling his lightstaff tight to his body, and punches forward a hand. A bolt of dark power crackles furiously, bursting through the air for less than second, and Obi-Wan goes flying with a broken cry.

“Obi-Wan!” Sian yowls, readies herself and charges, throwing not just her body, but everything she can bring to bear at the zabrak, pushing forward with all her power in the Force, all her presence, carving through the oppressive darkness that seems to stifle the air, like fire through rot.

He meets her fury with frightening ease, blistering red staff twirling and crashing against her own sunrise pink one, making it seem to bleed darker. But she doesn’t miss the fact that his stance slides, that his teeth grind with the force it takes to meet her. Sian digs her heels in, leans forward, her muscles straining to push back against the older, stronger combatant.

It is a contest of strength she knows she cannot win.

But she is the Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn. She is best friends with the first Mandalorian Jedi in over six centuries. She has learned from the unconventional and the inexhaustible and the outright mad.

She cannot win.

But she _can_ cheat.

Sian lets one sweaty hand slide free of her saber and yanks on the center of the hilt of his staff. Her resistance breaks, physically and in the Force, and his power ovrwhelms her. She lets it. But she drags him down too, driving a knee into his stomach, throwing her head forward and shouting in pain when her brow meets his with force, his horns scoring into her skin, his nose breaking under her cheekbone as they slam into the floor. Their still-locked sabers bite into the floor, tilting aside until they burn into her shoulder and she _shrieks_ -

She jerks her hand free and slams her fist - bearing her saber hilt - against him; his arms, his face, his scrabbling hands - over and over, refusing to let go of his staff with her other hand even as he wrenches at it, sending the red blade into her shoulder again, carving deeper into flesh and floor, the pain too intense to scream as she bucks and writhes, to _breathe_ -

Sian only catches a blur of green, but the darksider must sense the imminent, mortal danger much more clearly as Obi-Wan appears over them, blade driving down with totality.

He gives up the fight for his saber and rolls, wrenching her over his body.

Obi-Wan has better blade control than any padawan his age.

The blow was meant to be lethal, final, abrupt and cleanly done.

Sian doesn’t even have a chance to cry out, breath already sucked out of her by the time the blade has kissed her skin, dipped against her spine and been drawn back with a gasp.

It’s boiling hot and searing cold, and she can barely process the terror of _my best friend just about killed me –_

But.

If Sian can _feel_ , she can _fight_.

She sucks in air and yanks herself upright, drawing back a fist to punch the smug bastard beneath her only to be thrown, having let herself be ungrounded in the Force, the darksider gaining leverage. She hits Obi-Wan with a gasping grunt as she catches her, panting out a desperately whispered “ _Ni ceta_.” against her bloodied neck before dropping her on her feet as she summons her lightsaber.

His white and silver tunics are spiraled with charred back, smoldering with spotted burns. She can smell scorched silk, all but taste his burned flesh.

Or maybe that was her own.

Her left arm is shaking tremendously, blood weeping from the motion-split cauterized lines carved by the jostling sabers, the muscle ravaged. Sian draws in a long, hissing breath and quiets the pain. At least it’s not her saber arm.

Waves of _heat-cold-pain_ flow from the wound on her back, her pulse seeming to drive against it, amplified a thousand fold into shockwaves of agony that scrawls up and drives into her skull, radiating down to her feet and threatening to topple her.

 _I am more than this crude matter_ , Sian thinks firmly. _I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me_.

She draws in another breath, lets the Force take more of her pain. Obi-Wan breathes with her, both of them sweat-ridden, chests heaving. The Force sings between them, carrying them when they alone would fail.

They are side by side again, facing _him_.

Back where they began, but this time, nearly beaten from the start.

The zabrak curls a lip, taking one arrogant step forward, watching them take a defensive step back, sabers raised as he twirls the lightstaff which has so adeptly engaged and overcome them both so far. Sian has never seen a fighter like this, a form like _that_.

Sian takes an un-jedi-like satisfaction in the blood dripping down his face from his broken nose, even as he licks it from his dark lips with a leer.

Obi-Wan puffs a small laugh, drawing attention.

Narrowed, cruel curiosity from the darksider – incredulity and worry from Sian, before she senses it too – their masters –

Master Qui-Gon and Master Ben join them, reaching the corner behind them with Force-enhanced speed. Relief fills Sian, but she doesn’t dare let her guard falter.

The zabrak meets her gaze, and the challenge rising in it, with a baleful, bitter glare.

Then he runs.


	11. Chapter 11

“Obi-Wan. Sian.” His master pauses only long enough to turn to each of them, briefly cupping Obi-Wan’s cheek and laying a hand on Sian’s uninjured shoulder, bursting with care and barely restrained fear.

Sian’s own master catches her as she sinks to her knees, her skin almost yellow with shock, shaking from head to toe. “Padawan…” Master Qui-Gon sucks in a shaken breath and then closes his eyes, resolving himself and letting that horror of near-loss go. Sian flashes both masters with a firm, shining look. “We’ll be fine, Masters. Go. Obi-Wan –“ She looks to him, and he nods, understanding.

“I’ll take care of her.” He swears, looking to his master, who is bristling to give chase.

Master Ben nods, and Obi-Wan kneels as Master Qui-Gon rises to go.

Just as quickly as they arrived, they are gone, chasing –

Chasing the Sith.

Once she can no longer see them, Sian slumps forward, and Obi-Wan braces her.

“I’m so sorry.” Obi-Wan repeats his apology in a language she can understand, one hand braced on her collarbone, keeping her upright. He can feel her heart racing beneath his palm.

“Don’t be.” Sian croaks, lifting her head, dark lips twisting. “If it had been anyone else I’d be dead. You can take care of me, right?”

Obi-Wan nods with shaky relief. He and Tsui have been very dedicated to the practice of healing, these last few months. After what happened to Satine, he…. he just had needed to be more capable. “It won’t be perfect, but-“

“I don’t need perfect, Obi-Wan. I don’t mind a few scars.” She huffs, shivering a little. “I just need to be able to catch up to our masters.”

Obi-Wan nods. “I think I can do that.” He offers, though that is no small thing to ask, and moves to rise so he can actually work on her back.

Standing sends sizzling jolts of pain through him, a phantom echo of that – dark lightning, he supposes - that almost sends him crashing back to his knees. He gasps, his vision spotting, and staggers a step away before his stomach comes up involuntarily.

Sian groans as Obi-Wan wretches, turning her face away and crinkling her much more sensitive nose. Obi-Wan coughs, gasps, and keeps coughing, bruises bones and a possibly cracked shoulderblade lancing with fire.

“Are you gonna make it?” Sian croaks with a weak huff of humor.

Obi-Wan swallows against the burning acid in the back of his throat and shuffles back to her, shivering himself. “I will if you will.” He retorts, a feeble challenge that makes her brighten nonetheless. Dropping back down to his knees behind her hurts almost as much as standing up had.

The wound is small, neat, the skin bubbled around it in the corona of a lightsabers heat trace – the bladework had been precise and flicker-quick.

A fingers-width to the left and he would have hit her spine and crippled her. An inch deeper and he would have killed her. As it was, he’s surprised she’s not screaming right now, but between the cauterized nerves, adrenaline, shock and the Force, it’s not _entirely_ unexpected.

The neat hole opening the muscle, the warped gap where the blade practically vaporized the edge of her rib-bone – he can _smell_ her flesh, see it - Obi-Wan almost vomits again, bringing his trembling hands up to rest lightly around the wound.

His fingers brush cold skin, and he can feel already the churning energy of the injury, the processing decay of damaged and dying cells, the rushing, flurried response of clotting and weeping fluid and the body’s attempt to heal itself, and beneath that, her brilliant, burning essence, clouded with pain and uncertainty and exhaustion, but luminescent and unyielding at its’ source.

“This will work better if you meditate. Just a light trance – don’t try and _do_ anything, or you might mess me up.” Obi-Wan warns. “Just… draw on the Force, let it carry you. Relax your grasp of your body, your physical self, if you can.”

“Got it.” Sian murmurs, head dropping a little. Obi-Wan eyes the blood seeping through her hair with concern and lifts one hand to cradle the back of her skull, gently feeling out the injury. Sian flinches, and then relaxes into his touch as best she can.

“One thing at a time?” She suggests.

“That’s not really how this type of healing works.” Obi-Wan replies. Force Healing, the way Jedi did it, was very precise, very focused, encouraging very specific systems and cells within the body, bolstering them with the Force.

Nightsister magick’s had very little to do with the material aspects of damage and repair at all.

Sian offers a soft grunt at that, and Obi-Wan can sense her apprehension, which isn’t ging to help her not to resist him. “You have to be willing to let me in, Sian. You have to be willing to let me reshape you, or this can go very, very wrong. I’m warning you now, this is going to feel invasive. Possibly more invasive than anything you’ve ever experienced.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help me relax at all, Obi-Wan. I _do_ trust you.” Sian mumbles. “It’s just instincts, you know?”

Obi-Wan sighs. “Yeah, I know. Look, we can do this the other way, the temple way, but it won’t be enough to get you back in the fight. Not in time to help our masters.” He doesn’t have the power and acute focus of the Temple Healers, can’t close a wound this severe without exhausting them both. He wished he knew how to bridge the pathways of Nightsister Magicks and Force Healing, wished he could grasp, exactly, why they were so different, but he was no where near learned enough in either or in the Force itself to understand that, let alone explain it. It just was.

“No, we need – Obi-Wan, that darksider was so powerful. Didn’t you feel it? The Force _screaming_? It’s still so cold, so _desolate_. In the Living Force it’s…” She shudders under his touch. “I trust my master. I trust your master. But I would really, _really_ rather be there to back them up. I trust you. I trust you with my life.” Sian insists. “I trust you with my life.” She takes as deep a breath as she can, and turns her head just enough to glance back towards him, a shimmer of blue that almost glows.

“I suppose I ought to trust you with the rest of me too.” She offers, smiling nervously.

“I’ll take care of you.” Obi-Wan promises. “I swear it.”

“I know.” Sian replies. “You’re Obi-Wan Kenobi. It’s what you do.” She swallows, letting her head tip forward again as she takes a deep, readying breath.

“Do it.”

~*~

“ _Have you been able to locate the bomb yet_?” Trip snipes over the comm, and Quinlan grits his teeth, boots sloshing through ankle-deep grey-water as he, disguised as one of the Chandrilan Security Officers, navigated the utility service tunnels under the Assembly Hall and the Historic Plaza.

“Not yet.” Quinlan mutter back. “It’s like a fripping mirror maze trying to track down here.” Maul’s impressions seemed to echo, putting him everywhere and nowhere. He’d spent time down here, Quinlan thinks, and it doesn’t help that he left such _strong_ echoes. The Force was as murky as the dim, damp tunnels themselves, disappearing hints and nudges darting in odd turns, scattering like the path through unexpected junctions.

“ _Kark_.”

“I’ll find it.” Quinlan snaps.

“ _Not you – the hotel just went into lockdown_.” His mentor mutters in a sharp exhale. Quinlan scowls, the comms crackling and fading in and out with some kin of interference.

“Weren’t they already?”

“ _As in_ locked down _, kid_.” Trip enunciates bitingly, the tinny peal of some sort of alarm scratching through the background noise on his end. “ _And I am_ not _where I want to be_.”

Quinlan stops, water sloshing around his boots. One of the other security officers turns, flashing their light in his direction. Quinlan waves them on, shaking his head in a negative. They nod and keep searching, scanner in hand, eyes peeled.

“Kriff.” He swears quietly. _Neither am I_. “Can you – is there any way in?”

Preferably that didn’t involve anything _flashy_ , he thinks sourly. Sometimes, Shadow-work, he had concluded, included too much subtlety. They have fripping lightsabers for crying out loud. Quinlan would be cutting through the front door.

But Quinlan wasn’t calling the shots. Trip was, and Trip required a little more discretion. You never knew when you would be outing yourself at exactly the wrong moment, he’d say, no matter how dire things might seem already.

He can hear the older jedi make a sharply unhappy, disgruntled sound “I –“ Trip pauses, and Quinlan can actually hear his teeth click shut, followed by a strangely uplifted tone. “ - I _might_ , actually.”

Quinlan is _dying_ to ask, but Trip cuts the connection.

~*~

“ _Lachas_.”

Lachas is too well trained to stiffen up and jerk around, but he does draw in a quick half-breath and take a quick, measured glance of his compatriots, none of whom seem to have detected anything… untoward. The lead on their Security Team is still arguing Senator Organa out of attempting to follow the Jedi into what was clearly severe danger – not having the easiest time of it, either, as Senator Organa was already armed. Two more members are working on overcoming the seal on the balcony doors, with the hope of being able to exit and scale the building.

Lachas licks his lips, trying to think, and the taste of overwhelming honey sweetness all but makes him gag, and does make him think of murder.

He can hear, and yet not hear, the other spy chortling.

“ _Just trying to get your attention_.”

Lachas focuses, on a field of white snow, on a crisp, clear sky – a blank space, in his mind. ‘ _You have it_.’ He thinks, with deliberate intent, with heat, as stark in contrast as warm coffee in chilled hands.

Surprise, darting like birds. “ _You are a lot better at that than I expected.”_

Lachas draws in a slow breath, flexing his fingers. He does not like the Jedi in his head, and as soon as he figures out what he wants, he is walling him out – at least as much as his training and his lack of Force-Sensitivity will allow, and the next time he sees him-

Well, Lachas is _angry_.

“ _I am sorry_.” Apology, bleeding sincerity and respect. “ _My options were limited_.”

‘ _Explain_.’

“ _We were following a darksider here_.”

“Darksider?” Lachas murmurs, earning a sharp, inquisitive look from Ms. Maja, his ginger-haired, baby-faced junior currently posing as a notary clerk for the Senator. Lachas understands the function, political influence, and to an extent the abilities of the Jedi, but the philosophical nuance and …. less quantifiable aspects of their Order were muddier waters.

Trip doesn’t offer an explanation, just a wash of menace and cruel intent that makes the more mundane spy shudder and subconsciously rebel against, creating an odd mental _yank_ that gives him a sharp headache. “ _He is in there with you, and I am not_.”

‘ _What is he here_ for?’ Lachas sends back, struggling to recreate the space within his mind to do so effectively.

There is a pressing silence in his mind, and Lachas knows that struggle – what to say, what to not say. How much damage will either do? Can he afford it?

“ _I don’t know_.” The Shadow admits. “ _I don’t know what he’s doing in there. I was actually hoping you could help me with that_.”

‘ _You have got to be kidding me_.’

“Adjunct Bey?”

Lachas twitches reflexively and jumps his attention to discover that he has the concerned focus of Senator Organa’s warm brown eyes, and the good Senator has apparently just observed him glowering mutinously at the far wall and apparently grumbling to himself.

“S-Sir?” Lachas offers, tightening up his posture and widening his eyes a little.

Senator Organa’s lips purse faintly, brow dropping a touch at the corner. “Are you alright, Adjunct Bey? Is something wrong?” There is a strange, creeping keenness to the Seantor’s gaze, concern bleeding into something more _considering_ than considerate.

Lachas bites down an internal sigh, and swallows instead, like any other frustrated member of staff in a tense, uncertain situation. He is going to have to report that his charge may have begun to suspect his true profession.

“It’s nothing, Senator.” Lachas says, dropping his gaze. “I don’t like being trapped.” He offers – a perfectly plausible excuse. The Senator is quiet. When Lachas glances back up, there is still that considering edge to his intelligent gaze, but sympathy too. This is not the first time, for the two of them. Lachas dredges up a hesitant smile from his repertoire, and a little bit of the dry wit the Senator seems to enjoy. “Though I cannot complain about the company.”

That does earn him a small, affable chuckle. “I appreciate your forbearance, Lachas Bey.” Th Senator nods with a touch of his own dry humor. “I do seem to attract such situations, don’t I?”

“You do what you believe is right, Senator, and I believe in what you do.” Lachas replies with utter sincerity. “It’s an honor to work for you. Even if it we end up in situations like these. Which I freely admit _is_ a bit much for an Administrative Aide.” He tacks of, for the sake of keeping to his cover.

Senator Organa offers him a warm, utterly unreadable smile, and nods simply.

Lachas feels a bead of sweat roll down the back his neck.

Today is just rather not his day.


	12. Chapter 12

Qui-Gon keeps pace with Ben, though every step forward feels jarringly _wrong_. The Force around him is as if he has been plunged into an icy lake, a driving cold digs right into his instincts, pushing them into overdrive, all of the screaming _escape, flee, get away_ , yet the very condition which propels this makes it impossible – the cold is heavy and yawning, an undertow ready to take him down.

Qui-Gon reaches for the Living Force, and he finds it so very difficult to find it’s familiar, vibrant essence which has been an effervescent presence in and around him from the day he was born. He reaches into the Living Force, and all he can find is the screaming, bleeding heart at the center of that cold darkness, wailing and lashing out and threatening to consume him with its own pain.

The only counterpoint to this is Ben’s presence, which whips around the other jedi master like a storm seeping through his skin, full of a strange, harsh heat and brilliance, light like the shine off of the edge of a blade, like the flash of lightning deep in storm, all burning temperance and unyielding righteousness, not driving darkness back so much as subsuming it, riding along its current, feeding on it, dangerously close to slipping in to it.

It is almost just as painful to reach for him as it is to reach for the darksider – the so-called Sith.

They chase him through the maze of corridors, break through a service stair and follow him over the edge of a balcony in the orchid gardens and down the long fall to the main level, shattering tranparisteel barriers and spilling through kiosk shops, gaining on their quarry meter by harrowing meter.

 _Not the lobby_ , Qui-Gon prays, worried for the people there.

A yelled shriek, and then a low, forcible cry, and he two jedi skid to a quick stop just in time to witness the darksider flung through the air, slamming into the wall ahead of them from around the corner.

Ben and Qui-Gon share a glance, before the Sith’s snarling as he rises, and the sudden shart retort of a personal blaster attempts to send him back to the ground.

They fail, batted away with the simple shunt of a red saber as the Sith takes a dangerous step back towards his new obstacle –

Only for a rather less avoidable flying quartz bench to send him into the wall again – and this time through the tranparisteel window with a crash.

With a furious cry, the red-skinned zabrak leaps back to his feet and lashes out with a wave of bitter Force and the ragged swing of one arm, sending a vicious hail of transparisteel shards back down the corridor.

Qui-Gon was a touch slow, trying to bring the Force to bear to stop them before they struck their intended target-

Ben wasn’t, and the Sith’s attention rips back to the jedi pursuing him, and he flees once more.

A disgruntled, scathing warble precedes the appearance of a large kaleesh warlord from around the corner, and behind him the slighter figure of a blaster-wielding human girl.

“What _was_ that?” Cerasi of Melidaan demands.

“No one of concern to you.” Qui-Gon replies simply. Darksiders – Sith – were the purview of the Jedi. That was fundamental, set down in law in the earliest constitutions of the Galactic Republic.

“A would-be assassin.” Ben replies, shooting Qui-Gon a slightly irritated look. He glances back at the girl with a huff, and nods to her weapon. “I thought you were a pacifist.”

The girl gives him the bitterest of smiles. “I wish I could be.” She replies.

Ben nods, and glances at the warlord, whose yellow eyes are watching them all with glittering, intelligent contemplation. “ _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal.” The Mandalorian jedi acknowledges.

“Dai Karrabacc.” The warlord extends his greeting. “You appear to be on the hunt.”

“We are.” Ben replies swiftly, nodding in a quick, nonverbal gratitude for the kaleesh warlords timely intervention in redirecting Maul before he went running headlong into less capable persons. “Excuse us.”

The kaleesh makes an odd grating sound Qui-Gon assumes must be assent, and, drawing on what reserves he can, they continue their chase.

~*~

Maul exits the hotel with all the grace of a rampaging gundark, blowing out one of the shuttered windows with such force that the durasteel shelding is ripped out of the wall explosively, Maul leaping through the falling plastacrete dust.

Grimly, the two jedi follow, winding through back streets and and racing along the under-scaffold of a historical sky-rail.

Ben recognizes the direction they are heading in with displeasure, his suspicion come true when the rand arch of the city’s pace-port rises above them, and they follow maul into the maw of the multitude of hanger levels, shadowed and full of echoes and unexpected turns and barricades.

Ben slows, and reaches out to hold off Qui-Gon when he doesn’t.

“We should be cautious.” Ben warns, not liking where they have been led.

“He’ll escape.” Qui-Gon huffs, gesturing to the parked vessels and spacecraft around them, and the inevitable conclusion that among them was the darksiders own ship.

“Chandrilan Sky Authority will have the airspace on lockdown until the threat on the summit is verified and mitigated.” Ben replies tersely. “If he manages to get his ship off the ground, they _will_ notice, and if we must, we _will_ follow.” And hope the Chandrilan Sky Authority didn’t shoot _them_ down on accident and overzealousness.

Qui-Gon hums a little, disgruntled but accepting of that logic. Ben holds his lightsaber ahead of him, warily scanning their surroundings, probing the Force for any warning, as they make their way around corners and across bays.

“Up or down?” Qui-Gon murmurs, when they come to a junction.

Ben grinds his teeth. The Force offers nothing, nothing but Maul’s reeking, overwhelming presence that has Ben curling a lip, so heavily staining that he could be anywhere or nowhere. “Down.” Ben grits out.

Like a poisonous serpent, Maul always did prefer to slink into the nearest pit.

Qui-Gon eyes Ben with a flicker of wary glance, but nods, accepting his judgement. Together, they follow the curving slope of the next ramp downwards, descending into the sublevels.

Ben huffs, when they descend into pitch darkness, all the lights gone out. His copper saber and Qui-Gon’s green spill ahead of them in fragile pools, glinting off uncertain shapes where surfaces where reflective.

Ben steps forward, feeling his pulse pound, fingers curling into the ivory grip of his lightsaber. Qui-Gon follows, just a half step behind to his right, looking strained as they shift deeper and deeper into the dark garage, leaving behind the tenuous guardianship of the faint natural light that had been filtering down from the upper end of the tunnel ramp.

Something shifts in the deep shadows – a deliberate, scraping step.

“Are you afraid of the light?” Ben calls lowly, his tone cultured and courteous and all the more mocking for it.

 _Where are you_?

He turns slowly, trying to get bearings in the unknown depths and shapes of the dark space.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

A voice out of nightmares, and the blistering thrum of twin blades bleeding into life. Ben and Qui-Gon both whip around, and there, between them and the path from which they came, stands Maul, blazing yellow eyes like torches, his red skin seeping scarlet with the light of his blades, the dark of his tattoos melding into shadow.

“Darkness and I have a mutual dislike for each other.” Ben quips back.

Maul studies him, cocking his head, eyes roaming with ease his poorly lit form. He grins, revealing poorly cared for teeth. “I’m not sure that’s true at all, _jedi_.”

Ben glares at Maul, feeling his lightsaber all but purr in his hands in expectation, listening to Qui-Gon’s deliberate, measured breathing as he stands at his full height, readying himself.

Qui-Gon shifts his balance – “ _Wait_!” Ben hisses out, before the man can lunge ahead of him.

Qui-Gon lurches wrong, caught off-guard by the sudden admonishment, and Maul attacks.

 _Fuck_. Ben charges forward meeting the upswing of the lower blade with a hard crash and crackle, reeling back just in time to avoid having his head cleaved open by the sudden forward redirection of the upper blade, and then Maul is spinning, bringing the lower end around again, and this time Qui-Gon catches it.

The quiet ‘oof!’ of effort tells Ben that the older man hadn’t expected, entirely, just how physically, brutally _strong_ the young zabrak was. Maul yanks his staff from horizontal to lateral and punches the hilt right into Qui-Gon’s face, sending him reeling.

Before he can run him through, Ben is there, catching the blades in a spinning onslaught of his own, forcing Maul to guard, pressing and pressing, giving Qui-Gon space to recover, keeping Maul moving, forcing him to keep his blades up and forward, denying him the weapons dangerous maneuverability.

Ben quietly offers thanks to Master Tapal and Captain Rozess for every spar they ever indulged him in, preparing him for precisely this.

This only feeds the Sith’s fury, thrills the power he carries until it fuels his strength, until it bleeds into the Force, stifling and suffocating, like bad air.

Qui-Gon rejoins them, leaping in an ataru arc and landing behind the Sith. Maul turns so quickly Ben’s guard slips, and he jumps back as he’s nearly gutted, Qui-Gon catching put on the defensive at the sudden aggressive strike, scarlet snapping against green. 

Maul glances quickly between the two Jedi, and strikes out at Ben, a sudden explosive burst of power that knocks him off his feet. With him thrown back, Maul turns on Qui-Gon with a hammering maelstrom of blows, forcing him to defend on both sides as the staff arcs and turns.

Ataru can not keep up. Maul does not give the taller man the room the form requires. Ben’s heart thunders, chest pulling tight as he takes back to is feet and throws himself at Maul’s back.

The zabrak leaps this time, and Ben almost runs into Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon pushes him back with the Force a bit bluntly, but Ben thanks him for it., and then curses and throws himself at Qui-Gon anyway, turning his copper blade around the other mans back just in time and still having to elbow him to shove him to safety as the red blade crashes down, dances along copper. The angle of Ben’s sloppy guard was too awkward to hold any real strength, and he falters, blade being driven down under Maul’s. Qui-Gon recovers and turns, catches both blades – Ben and Maul’s - at the peak with a sweeping motion and rips upward, breaking their connection.

The back end of the staff drives into the duracrete, spitting angrily. Ben and Qui-Gon turn on Maul together, and Ben would smile, if he were in the mood, when he notices the distinct poise of a makashi defense in the other man’s form.

Maul gives them both another swift, calculating look, and drive forward – one blade going low, sweeping at Qui-Gon’s feet, the other high, driving at Ben’s houlder as Maul spins and drives in close. Qui-Gon leaps, makashi rigid economy breaking instantly for ataru’s sweeping acrobatics, and Ben blocks the blade, but not the elbow to his face that follows it.

Bone cracks against his cheekbone with a starburst of pain, and he feels his cheek split. Ben grunts hard, catches the pole of the staff to his chin in another jarring blow that sends light skittering behind his eyes. He lets himself fall back, dropping hi weight on one planted foot and driving the other up, catching Maul in the hip and sending him spinning to the ground.

He's up again instantly, blade twirling to drive them back before they can lung, before they can strike, and Ben swings anyways, letting his blade be dashed, waiting for the chance –

Maul cuts suddenly up at Qui-Gon, blade singing up with deadly precision and intent to his throat-

“ _No_!”

A wave of pure Force throws the red bladed weapon – and its wielder – back, sparing Qui-Gon’s life. The energy that breaks through the darkness is like fireworks, sudden and sparkling and irresistible. Both jedi turn instinctively to see their padawans running down the tunnel, ready to join the fight, their presence bright and invigorating and desperately rewarding as it, for a moment, breaks through the leeching attrition of the cold miasma of the dark side, offering them a single chance to breathe in the Force -

It was a distraction.

A distraction they could not afford.

Obi-Wan and Sian both stumble with stark horror, their hands coming up to ward off-

Ben whirls, copper blade ripping through the air –

Too late.

Too far away.

 _Useless_ , as Maul drives one of those blistering scarlet blades right through Qui-Gon Jinn’s back.

Ben and Sian both suck in a guttered breath, and _scream_ –

“ _Master_!”


	13. Chapter 13

His vision is consumed with red light.

There is a roaring in his ears; the pound of rushing blood, the chugging rotation of a shield generator, the paralyzing inability to do anything but _watch_ -

His master, splayed on the ground, the tattooed zabrak sneering and victorious in bloodshed.

Fear leaves him, utterly and violently. The worst has happened, what else is there?

In its absence, vengeance floods in, grief and wrath rising up, pushing down, threatening to consume him –

His hand tightens on his lightsaber, and his eyes lock on his enemy’s.

~*~

Sian can’t breathe, even as her own cry echoes back at her from the pitch black void beyond the garish light cast by their sabers, gone glowering and garishly red in the absence of Master Qui-Gon’s summer green blade.

 _Master_.

 _Master_.

 _Master_.

She leaps to his side, slashing wildly to drive the darksider back, but the zabrak pays her little mind, chuckling as he turns and vanishes into the black, his red blades snuffing out, dissapeaing him into void space.

Sian’s hand is shaking, as she brushes splayed hair from her master’s shock-pale cheek. She gives a ragged whimper of desperate relief at the faint whisper of his breathe against her fingertips when she splays them over his mouth. The devaronian padawan shifts her saber higher for a light, and steels herself to look at the wound. It’s clean, in the way that all lightsaber wounds are, but a jagged dark line surrounded by a corona of scorched cloth and flesh for the way the blade was wrenched in and wrenched out with callous disregard for anything but savagery. It’s high on his torso, low on his sternum, and Sian can feel his life slipping away, like sunlight dimmed by storm-clouds, a star stolen by eclipse.

She finally finds her breath and turns back. “ _Obi-Wan_!” She cries out, looking to her friend, who is a little ragged with exhaustion as he stands on guard, his saber held defensively, his gaze darting uncertainly between the blackness where their enemy disappeared and the odd stillness of his own master, whose entire body seems to have locked up, whose eyes have gone distant and unfocused, seeing something else, somewhere else.

Some _when_ else, she suspects, and lets the thought go. It doesn’t concern her right now. She doesn’t care. “Obi-Wan Kenobi!” She demands again, angry and urgent, and he moves, finally, at her side in a blink and dropping roughly to his knees next to her. Even in the uncertain clashing glow of their lightsabers, she can tell he blanches at the wound, so much worse than her own had been. “Save him.” Sian demands. It’s unfair of her, it’s too much to ask when he has already spent so much just to get her here, but _she does not care_. “Obi-Wan, _save_ _him_. He’s my master, I can’t – you have to. You _have_ to save him.”

Qui-Gon Jinn was stubborn and prickly and difficult, he drove her mad most of the time, but he was her master, her teacher – he fed her butter cookies when she seemed under-spirited, even if he didn’t know why, and boyishly introduced her to all the sad little plants he rescued (this was less endearing when the plants disagreed with her existence) and drank too much tea and still scowled at her reverse grip, even if he’d stopped trying to correct it and-

And there were a thousand _ands_.

He was the closest thing she had to a father. As trying and contrary as he could be – Sian didn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t bear it. She _couldn’t_.

There is a dreadful trepidation in Obi-Wan’s eyes when he looks at her, but he looks at her, and he lets his fear go, seeing her own reflected back at him. He takes a breath, and his expression firms in resolve. He nods with determination, looking down to the task ahead with grim focus and Sian shudders in relief, grabbing him in a fierce, jarring hug before releasing him and leaping to her feet, moving past her fallen master.

It is possibly the hardest few steps she has ever taken in her life, and she wobbles dreadfully, biting down on a quiver in her lip.

She forces one foot in front of the other, and it gets easier, step by step.

 _I trust him with my life_. Sian tells herself. _I can trust him with my masters_.

Her steps come faster, more sure, and a snarl starts to curl across her face, a growl rising from deep in her chest as anger blooms in flooding heat through her center. _I’ll **kill** that monster_, she thinks furiously.

She has better night vision than her friends, and she glowers, scanning her surroundings as she wades into the dark with a predatory lope, willing the darksider to appear before her with reckless desire.

A sizzling, dread warning crawls up her spine and Sian freezes.

But it’s not the darksider that she senses, that she sees move. It is Master Ben, taking a dragging, dangerous step forward, as if rising from a dream - or a nightmare. Her sense of him expands, spooling out into the room with crackling, charged pressure.

He spins, suddenly, and catches a bleeding red blade as it ignites behind him, slamming back up against the darksider with unexpected force, with a wall of potent fury that overwhelms even that imposing presence, throwing him off. And then Master Ben lifts a hand, and the darksider rises with it, clawing at the air, at the crushing pressure enveloping him – not enough, Sian thinks – no; Sian _knows_. In an instant, she knows – not enough to kill him.

Just enough to cause him absolute agony.

The zabrak starts screaming – not with pain; or at least, not entirely, but with a rage bordering on madness, his dark power lashing out, cracking the duracrete, rattling the vessels around the hanger with the warble of stressed metal -

Sian rocks forward and charges, prepared to cut him down before he wrenches free -

A hand slams into her sternum with driving force, knocking her back painfully as Master Ben drops the darksider to stop her. She hits the ground hard, scraping palm and elbow and bruising her tailbone as her saber skitters across the floor, scarring it.

“Stay out of my way!” He commands her, for the blink of a second all of that formidable, raw power pressing down on _her_ , all but crushing her.

Then he rips his focus back to the zabrak, who has staggered back to his feet, lightsaff once more blazing scarlet from both ends as he begins a slow, circling stalk, fuming with malice and watching Master Ben with avid, rabid interest –

Though he spares a glance for her, and sneers mockingly.

Sian snarls back, swallowing fear and shock and leaping to her feet in anger, her blade a clear, ringing note to guide her through the cacophony of all else. “That was _my_ master.” Sian snarls, prepared to lunge, even as the welting bruise on her chest throbs in reminder.

“Was he?” The darksider taunts, intent of baiting her into a foolish rage - _succeeding_ \- “How pitiful –“

Master Ben is on him, and the darksider has no more opportunity for words.

~*~

Ben feels a curl of dark satisfaction when Maul’s eyes widen at the sudden ferocity and untampered power of his resurgent attack.

Ben slashes back the upper blade, then the lower. Maul whirls, twisting the staff and driving forward in a swift strike that Ben dances around, folding his blade between his body and the staff, shearing it aside.

The flashback had caught him off guard, and Ben is furious with himself for it.

He should never have allowed Qui-Gon into this fight. He had been so afraid that his master would charge headlong into an enemy he was not prepared to face, _again_ , that he himself had fallen into the trap – he had been so utterly focused on Qui-Gon; on his safety, on his protection - that he had not given his full focus, the _necessary_ focus, to Darth Maul, to the fight itself.

And in doing so, he had allowed the opportunity for his fears to come to fruition.

Grief and failure surge bitter at the back of his throat, and Ben lashes forward at Maul, driving the younger combatant back, meeting every intense, volatile strike blow for blow, his copper blade twisting between the two red blades like a tongue of flame, searing his opponents hands and forearms in glancing edges as the blades clash again and again.

Sweat rolls down Ben’s collar, beads on his brow; both hands are wrapped around his lightsaber to combat the zabrak’s ferocious strength. Maul twists with malignant grace and Ben catches a sweeping side-blow only for Maul to wrench back and twist – Ben drives down, fighting to keep his blade from being knocked back, but his stance gives way as the darksider presses in and _up_. Ben doesn’t so much flip as he slips through the shadows with a trick of the eye, regaining his ground and driving back into Maul’s guard, thwarting his reach once more.

They glare at each other, faces lit in molten glow.

Maul may practice Juyo - a form the jedi have restricted for generations - riding the current of the dark side itself into every chaos driven, erratic and violently powerful blow, the ferocity form well living up to its name, but Ben is riding the crest of a tide of a lifetimes worth of heartbreak and dread and bitter, hard-won experience.

Maul is younger, stronger - in the height of his physical prime and saber prowess - but for all his raw power, he does not have the control he had learned once with age, does not have the caution he’d learned through brutal measure, does not have the potent, irrevocable self-possession of someone whom has been utterly, bitterly alone, wounded and abandoned and forsaken and yet _survived_.

Ben is past his physical prime – he has been broken too many times, abused his body too freely - and even his balance in the Force is less certain than it once was – he _knows_ this, has been warned so many times – but he is still in the height of his skill, he has a thousand battlefields of experience, and knows far more now of the Force, and of himself, than he ever has.

In a strange twist of fate, where once he had felt them to be polarized parallels, now they juxtaposed opposites, counterpoints of life in measure.

Maul is fast and formidable, perfectly rooted in the dark side whereas Ben can feel himself teetering, slipping on the edges of the Force between the Light and the Dark Side which just _waits_ to take him – but he can read the swirling chaos of the currents within it, the subtle ripple of muscle and shifting balance, and copper meets red every time. For all of the young Sith’s potent, succored rage and pain which fuels his corrupt power, Ben meets the yawning pressure of it with a depth of personal grudge and knowing that Maul cannot begin to compare with.

Strike by brutal strike, Ben presses the Sith back, stealing leverage in the fight, in the Force, moment by moment, blow by blow, a fluid blending of forms from Shii-Cho’s Force-guided intuition, to Soresu’s tight, close-quarters defense, to Djem-So’s aggressive momentum.

Slowly, step by driving, dancing step, it dawns on the Sith that he _is_ going to lose.

Maul’s strikes become more erratic, desperate in their fury, blinding in bitter hatred. Ben whirls, copper flaring in the dark, catching one blade above his shoulder with a violent surge of power where the two blades met, hissing with heat that sears too close to his face, crackling against his skin, the hilt of his saber digging into his palms. Maul snarls, the foul reek of him washing over Ben. Ben grits his teeth and drives his blade down along the length of Mauls – the Sith jerks back too late, and Ben’s violet-hued copper saber bites into the hilt of the staff, shearing it down half the middle until his blade is blown back by the bursting energy of the crystals shattering.

He and Maul twist apart, Ben carrying with him the flickering potency of near-victory, rushing through him with thrilling vigor. Maul’s expression has hardened to stone, desperation bleeding into the poison of his gaze as he readjusted his damaged weapon.

Ben twirls his blade, taking an easy, loping step forward just to see which way the Sith will bolt.

He doesn’t. Perhaps Ben should have expected that – even now, the apprentice will fear his master’s wrath more than death at a Jedi’s hands. Sidious would never abide Maul exposing himself and failing to clean up the mess, and what he would do to him would be so, so much worse than death.

Ben would pity him.

But today he has no patience for pity.

With a dark twist of his lips, a grimacing, frantic sneer, Maul reaches out and rakes a hand through the air. A wailing, ear-splitting screech, and one of the smaller vessels in the garage shoots out through the dark. Ben leaps into a ducking roll, vaulting back to his feet as it skids away in the blackness behind him, sparks flying in its wake.

Clenching his jaw, Ben whirls back towards the Sith, ready to finish this before he brings half the parking garage down around them, only to find Sian charging in, cutting him off.

The devaronian padawan slams her plasma buckler into the Sith’s chest with a roar and slashes forward with that flicker-quick makashi precision, slipping past the scarlet blade and scoring a line across Maul’s arm before he retaliates brutally, twisting his surging red blade and raining a volley of hammering blows against the girl, who guards with her buckler and her blade in turn, barely keeping up, only able to stand it because she had grounded herself in the Force, and refused to be moved.

Ben curses the girl and tries to yank the saber-hilt free from Maul’s hand with the Force. The darksider only sneers at the attempt and lunges at the devaronian padawan, who for all her skill and all her training and all her righteous anger and blinding light is unprepared for _this_.

Maul is a weapon more than a decade in the making, crafted by a man who could bring the galaxy to its knees. Sian is gifted, brave, dedicated to her training, but right now she is also driven by grief and anger into recklessness, and power against power, she is _not_ Maul’s equal. Ben looks at her, in this moment, and sees himself, a lifetime ago.

The zabrak drives her back, taken only a moment off guard when she takes a rising few steps off nothing at all and drives her blade down over him in a tight, Force-driven arc. She scores a line across his back, and Maul _howls_.

Sian has barely caught her feet when Maul snaps his elbow back into her face, spinning and planting a heavy boot into her stomach, sending her reeling –

Ben catches the red blade before it falls, denying Maul his savage, lethal retaliation, and he shunts the blade forward, driving himself between Maul and the padawan as she scrambles back to her feet. Ben grinds his teeth and presses Maul back with a fury of rapid, close-quartered blows, reading that calculative glint in that horrid yellow gaze for exactly what is was; he’d found a weakness to exploit. Sian is a distraction Ben cannot afford, and the girl should have known better. Ben had _ordered_ her to stay out of his way.

She doesn’t, and Ben barely keeps from sending her hurtling himself when she leaps over them both, coming up at Maul’s back with a vengeance. Maul ducks, twisting with the sinuous agility and speed of an adder and dragging Ben forward, nearly sending him into the girl with one harsh yank in the Force as he vaults out from between them.

Sian steadies herself even as Ben’s blade weeps past her ear, and turns to chase. She keeps pressing, trying to drive herself into Maul’s guard even when every cell in her being must be telling her to pull away from something so vile and dark, chasing him heedlessly.

Half the battle wasn’t the saber-work at all. It was in the Force, in themselves, struggling to center themselves, to hold, to not be overwhelmed.

Ben does what his every instinct tells him not to do, a grimace staining his face, and pulls back.

Sian Jeisel makes an impressive assault, all economic grace and tight, economic acrobatics, her defense slowly shoring up, her opportunities for offense moment by moment expanding.

Her presence blooms, sensing her own gain, sensing the possibility of success.

She does not realize it is not enough, but Ben can feel the tide of darkness curling around her, subtle eddies testing her resolve, probing for the faintest flaw, the barest touch of weakness, threatening to sweep her under, to crush her, and her light with her.

Ben takes just a moment to catch his breath, and this time when he rejoins them, he grabs her by the back of her shirt and yanks her back, shoving her out of the fight before meeting Maul’s blade again, catching it just below his throat with a grunt. Sian yelps in outrage, and Ben ignores the girl.

She has enough sense, at least, to heed the inherent warning, and not dive right back in to the fray.

The mandalorian jedi master leans into the force of Maul’s next strike and twists, wrenching the blade awry before he slams bodily forward, catching the red blade again before the Sith Apprentice can rally his next strike.

Maul is panting, starting to growl out with every harsh breath, and Ben can feel him pulling on the Dark Side, feel the uneven surges in the Force, the caustic enhancement it provides Maul’s body. They lock blades, and the presence of him tears at Ben like acid, biting and leeching and burning cold. Ben snarls at the oily, violating touch of it, a touch associated with too many of his nightmares. Ben resents it, that resentment seeping blackly out of his bones, out his heart, out of the worst of himself, drawing deep into the paces where he keeps his pain, his heartbreak and ugly desires for revenge, and the strength of it roils from him in flickers of green fire snapping between the two of them, one storm meeting another.

Maul falters, and Ben grins viciously as he rips their deadlock aside and spins his blade with decisive swiftness, a rush of relish and satisfaction coursing through him when Maul _screams_ at the loss of his arm.

Ben needs him alive.

Not necessarily in one piece.

His blood sings, and he stalks the zabrak as Maul staggers back, this fresh agony and seething hatred tearing at the world –

Ben lifts an arm to guard his face as the duracrete around them rumbles, dust and chunks of broken crete raining from the ceiling, as more ships skid hazardously out of place in the dark, rattling ominously, Maul latching on to power he cannot fully control and all the more dangerous for it –

A flash of blinding pink, and Ben stutters in alarm and bitter resentment that swarms quickly into fury, as Sian leaps in for the kill, burning with righteousness and focus as her blade strikes true–

“ _No_!” Ben roars.


	14. Chapter 14

There is a sickly, thrilling, dreadful sort of victory, of relief, when her blade slips past the darksiders guard and strikes true-

Relief abruptly aborted into shock, when Master Ben’s copper saber hooks beneath her own and wrenches her blow upwards and back out – _saving_ that monster.

Or _trying_ to.

Her blade cleaves up through a quarter of the darksiders chest, sinking through his shoulder – costing him his other arm – and carves open half his face as her blade is forced awry.

Copper and pink blaze and sing, his blade sliding down the length of hers before the force of his defense digs in and shoves, throwing her off-balance. He towers over her, _furious_ , and Sian lurches backwards in shock.

The zabrak is _screaming_ , stumbling backwards into the dark, panic and primal rage tearing through the Force, building and building-

“Damn you, padawan!” Master Ben roars at her, the Force throwing her back again, knocking her to her knees, or perhaps that was the shaking ground, heaving and rocking beneath her feet, the shuddering of walls and crumpling screech of wrenching metal of the entire world feeling like it was about to fly apart. Dust and plastacrete rain down from the ceiling, the Force screaming _danger-danger-danger_. “I _need_ him! I need him _alive_!”

Sian doesn’t understand, flinching away from his ire.

He whips away from her with tense desperation and fury, moving to follow the wounded, madly howling zabrak into the pitch black, into the maelstrom of the Force –

Master Ben freezes suddenly, sucking in a sharp breath -

The Force explodes with darkness, and the world with it.

~*~

As a metaphor to offer some grasp of the context to the uninitiated, shatterpoints in the Force are often described as being like cracks in a mirror. The more cracks here are, the more fragments – and each fragment a different possibility, a different outcome.

Some shatterpoints are moments or persons so complex, the variations overlap to the point of madness. Others are so simple, but so strong, so stark in the paths the diverge from them… and you don’t realize how _fragile_ it all really is.

Not all great shatterpoints are born of great people and grand gestures. Some of the most defining choices, the most delineating chances, come from such _small_ things.

The metaphor, of course, is explained in visual terms. In Mace’s experience, a shatterpoint is not necessarily something he _sees_. It is a sense, possibilities folded together like a crossroads in a dry riverbed, waiting for meltwater to choose which course the current will take, everything rushing forward, the outcome residing somewhere between inevitability and pure chance.

He can sense the edges of the paths that could be taken, but he does not _see_ where they lead, cannot determine what follows. He is only there to bear witness, to try not to drown when the waters rise, when the moment of impetus comes, surging and undecided before something finally gives and the current rushes free, the course determined.

The worst of it, is that Mace does not need to be _there_ , where the choices are made, the chances spent, when the change in the course of the Force occurs, for it to wash over him like unexpected floodwaters. To those deeply attuned to the Unifying Force, a pivotal enough nexus could be felt from across the galaxy.

One such occurrence catches him off guard in the middle of a quiet morning meditation.

“Mace?”

He comes out of it curled over, cradling the crushing pressure in his head as it finally loosens its grasp, and looks up into the lovely, concerned violet eyes of Adi Gallia. She looks over his face and arches a brow. “What happened?” She inquires, her tone an offer, not a demand.

Mace shakes his head faintly. “I don’t know.” His voice comes out lower and a touch coarser than he’d like. “But I have a feeling we’ll find out.” He adds, murmuring as any number of a hundred worries occur to him. _For better or worse_ , he adds, in the privacy of his own thoughts.

Still, as a faint line appears in Adi’s brow, the tholotian woman leaning back, worries and contemplations of her own spinning away behind her eyes, Mace believes that they can face that horizon, whatever new dawn it might bring, whatever storm.

They were Jedi, after all.

He has to believe in that.

~*~

Master Sifo-Dyas jolts in his sleep, eyes rover under fluttering lids, fingers twitchings, muscled jerking with the inability to actually do anything. Sweat soaks his sheets, clings to his skin, and when he wakes, he wakes in fear – heart hammering, limbs tangled in his bedcovers, body cold.

He gulps in air like a drowning man, drags a shaking hand across his clammy face.

The dreams don’t fade, burning still in his mind, behind his eyes, and bile creeps up his throat, the taste of death and plasma in the back of his mouth, the echoes of blaster-fire and screaming, the terror of great shadows in the sky, the branding impressions of a red inferno, of worlds on fire-

“Make it stop.” He pleads with the Force, pressing his palms to his eyes, willing it away. “Please, make it stop.”

He keeps gulping in air, trying to calm his pulse, to temper his fear. The images were broken and incoherent, but so _powerful_.

The jedi master rocks on the edge of his bed. A lifetime of visions, and none have ever been so terrible as _this_.

He stay there for minutes – or perhaps hours – struggling for solace and not finding it, before the chill ache in his bones become bearable, before his head stops feeling like it might split open, and the whole galaxy pour inside.

He rises shakily and retreats into the fresher, washing sweat from his skin, putting to rights his snarled hair. He stands and looks in the mirror, half prepared to flinch if it weren’t his own face looking back – his visions were not always from an outside perspective, and sometimes, sometimes those more intimate perspectives lingered.

It _is_ his own face – eyes bloodshot, bristling jaw in need of a shave, the wrinkles of stress more pronounced. He looks tired. He feels tired. Shaken.

He attends to his morning routine by rote. He eats a meager breakfast in his quarters, not yet up to braving the world, and attempts to clear his harrowed spirit with meditation.

He is only partially successful.

He needs counsel, he decides. These dreams….

He shudders.

He was to see his friend today anyways, so perhaps that was fortuitous. Yan Dooku held a very different regard for the portents of dreams and visions, and his advice, while not always of a helpful nature, was usually quite clarifying.

Yes, Sifo-Dyas decides. He will speak to Yan of this.

Perhaps his friend can assuage his fears.

 _Please_ , he prays. _Please let me be wrong_.

 _The jedi_ cannot _be destined for war_.

~*~

“Is someone giving you a _problem_?”

Ky Narec blinks, glancing aside at the disgruntled expression on his padawan face as she scans his class of junior padawans and disciples, winter eyes narrowed in warning for anyone who – as she put it – might be giving him a _problem_. She looks very much like she wants to leap in and handle it for him, which, while endearing, is perhaps not the most serene approach.

Ky lays a calloused hand on her chalk-pale shoulder, earning her attention. “Be at ease.” He admonishes, a familiar refrain that makes her lips pull and her gaze roll skyward. She does, however, make an attempt to be less suspicious and confrontational, if only mellowing into a light sulkiness. “It’s nothing anyone has done.” He remarks, to assuage her worries. “It’s only…” He trails off, finding it a puzzle to put into words as he looks over his class again, all separated into pairs and small groups to practice various forms at their own pace, while an instructor is on hand to provide assistance and correction.

Asajj blinks luminescently at him, awaiting an explanation with a patience it might surprise many of her instructors to discover she has. But then, she had always reserved such patience for his thoughts and concerns that she rarely held for anything else, and has done since she was a girl.

Ky sighs, watching the generation of young jedi before him, and finds his thoughts taking troubling turns. Asajj had, to him, always seemed so remarkable, as she grew. So very different from himself and his own peers at her age.

If her power, her spirit, her talent had always been remarkable in comparison with temple standards, the generation before him – they are something else entirely.

In this room alone he is watching them practice with static Force Structuring – a concept he would never have considered and _still_ could not master, the Force too much a kinetic thing, a moving, ephemeral thing in his thoughts, in his training and understanding, to fully grasp the necessary faith in concept. He is watching them practice shielding and hiding, not only for stealth, but in _active_ _combat_ as well, slipping in and out of his senses like shadows in water with all the promise of future Jedi Shadows – except they are doing this as young as the _Initiate_ levels, obscuring themselves in the Force, evading casual observation with Hide-Me deflections better crafted than most Knights of Ky’s generation could have done at twice their age. Even their sparring is advanced, their grasp of forms and discipline notably better even before apprenticeship.

The temple is different – the _Jedi_ are different – than the place and people of his past. A decade was a long time to be gone – but not _that_ long.

But the young jedi before him now…. They have taken on more power at a younger age. They are bolder, fiercer, and they are more scared than the generations that preceded them.

Ky Narec had not had a choice in raising Asajj Ventress as a warrior, but in every single day of doing it, he had felt _saddened_ by it.

He feels that same sadness now, watching them, and there is a dread, deep in his stomach, that it may be just as necessary.

“Master?” Asajj eventually prompts.

“It’s nothing.” He sighs, not wishing to explain, wary of diminishing his padawans pride in herself if he fails to convey that his disappointment with her station is not a disappointment in her, but in himself, and all the things he had been unable to provide for her.

Her winter eyes narrow skeptically and she grumbles. “If you _say_ so.”

Ky huffs at the clear and blatant disbelief in her tone, but that is just her way – not pushing, though she could, but letting him know she doesn’t buy it, either.

“I say so, little one.” He teases.

“I’m not so little anymore, you know.” She retorts, relaxing.

Ky eyes her, well aware that he is being rapidly outgrown by his dathomiri padawan. “No, I suppose you aren’t.” He remarks, and this makes him sad too.

Her eyes flash, and she pouts, turning antsy at seeming to have failed to cheer him up.

Ky twitches a lip, irrevocably fond. “But you will have to indulge your old master. He’s sentimental, you know.” He goes back to teasing.

Asajj rolls her eyes, arms crossing, but a small smile curls at the edge of her stained lip.

Ky snorts softly, and someone yelps – he has taken his eyes off his class for too long.

The Jedi Master sighs and wades into the fray to tend to bruises and injured pride. How _he_ , of all people, wound up as the prospective Deputy Battlemaster…

He shakes his head. They all do what they must, as they are needed. It is merely a part of the calling they have dedicated themselves to.

 _We do what we must, as we are needed_ , He thinks, starting an unimpressed scolding when the explanation starts with “Well, she dared me to and I -“

 _And we hope it is enough_.


	15. Chapter 15

Obi-Wan pulls in a drawn, raspy inhale, stirring dust, and coughs as it hits his lungs. He comes back to his body with lurching confusion. Everything aches, from skin to bone, and he whimpers, trying to drag his limbs inward. The world around him is numb in his senses, and he feels – he feels so _empty_ , so utterly spent. 

Another inhale, breath burning in his chest, and he cautiously, fearfully reaches for that space inside him, that precious, sacred center where light should be.

Please _. Please._

Obi-Wan sobs when he finds it, spent down to flickering embers, but not _gone_. His fingers curl, dragging fabric, air stirs against his shoulder, tickling his neck, and a dull thumping registers below his ear.

Master Qui-Gon is still alive.

Relief forces his breath back out again, and Obi-Wan tries to move, to push himself up from where he had collapsed over the unconscious master. Dust and chips of stone spill down his shirt, skitter off his armor and patters to the floor. There is a stifled closeness to the dark around him, and Obi-Wan has no idea what happened. He thinks he’d lost consciousness before getting the chance to find out – or been too deep in the thrall of healing.

Obi-Wan nervously runs his fingers over the charred tear in Master Qui-Gon’s tunic, trying to feel the wound. He can feel ripples in the flesh beneath and swallows painfully. Nightsisters magick – their healing – it wasn’t meant to leave marks. Not if it was done right. But Obi-Wan….

Master Jinn had been _dying_. Healing him had felt like trying to keep the tide from unshaping a structure in the shoreline of sand, the foundations constantly slipping through his grasp, washing away in the eddies, and when Obi-Wan had tried to hold on harder-

Obi-Wan knew Nightsister Healing was intrusive and painful. Master Jinn couldn’t have known what was happening – but… he’d _resisted_ , rejecting the padawans efforts and –

Obi-Wan slumps down again, limbs shaking, and feels that slow-pounding heart beneath frail flesh.

Master Jinn was alive.

Obi-Wan is just scared of what it may have cost them both to keep it that way. Tsui was proof enough that failure in this technique was not gentle.

A shuffling scrape, a groan filtering through the stifled air, and Obi-Wan yanks himself back upright, staring into the pitch darkness. He barely has the energy left to feel the presence of his lightsaber, and his fingers stumble along the floor around him till they brush metal and claim it back to his hands. A small tendril of warmth seeps into him from the crystals, fragile but comforting.

“Master Ben? Obi-Wan?”

“Sian?” Obi-Wan calls, her voice reaching him muffled by chunks of stone, slipping through gaps in the collapsed slabs of duracrete.

Rubble moans and heaves, shifting, and everything around him shudders. “Stop!” Obi-Wan cries out, bracing himself over Master Jinn, terrified that if the ceiling came down again, he couldn’t protect either of them. He was too spent.

A distinctive spew of mando’a swearing filters through to him, and Obi-Wan breathes in relief that his Master was okay.

“Master?” Obi-Wan calls out. “What happened?”

~*~

Sian bites her lip at Obi-Wan’s perilous question. She is bruised and exhausted, but she is fine, really.

She had been too shocked to react, but she had felt Master Ben’s power envelope her when the ceiling came down, protecting her. He’s still close, she thinks, shuffling along the edge of the space she can feel around her. She hesitates to reignite her lightsaber. She’s not sure how well balanced, how settled everything is and if she accidentally weakens a pressure point by hitting her lightsaber in just the wrong spot….

Master Ben’s anger bites at her, colored heavily with defeat, with tiredness as it wafts out from him.

Sian swallows, scooting towards where she can sense him to be. “The darksider got away.” She calls, answering Obi-Wan’s query as his anxiety rises, the longer Master Ben doesn’t. Shame and uncertainty bubble in her stomach, churning with dread.

Ahead of her, there is a hard grunt, and Sian winces.

“I’m sorry.” She says quietly, crawling. The scent of blood hits her palate, and Sian freezes. “Master Ben?” She whispers loudly.

“He got away.” Master Ben repeats hoarsely, the bitter truth of it galling. He grunts again, the sound harsh with pain, and Sian finds an unexpected column blocking her path, rebar jutting from it in twisted, seared points.

“I didn’t kill him, Master Ben.” Sian swallows, trying to feel her way around. She hadn’t – she had grievously injured him, but that surge of power, the collapse – that had not been a death cry. That had been an escape plan. The zabrak was gone, but he wasn’t _dead_. Sian breathes shallow, the coppery metallic of human blood making her all the more queasy. Master Ben is bleeding, and she fears worse. He had tried to lift the rubble with the Force – he may have been caught by it. He’d hardly been focused on himself, after all.

“And you’ll regret that! We _all_ will.” Ben snaps out roughly, short of breath by the clipped nature of his words. “He was right here! You stupid little fool – he was _right_ here. We _had_ him. Why the hell couldn’t you do what you were told!” There is a blunt slam, like a fist driven down.

“I’m _sorry_!” Sian bursts out. She was. She _was_. She just didn’t grasp _why_. She had done as she was trained to do – what had been so wrong with that? “I don’t understand! What _was_ that?”

Master Ben huffs, a strained, disbelieving sort of sound, as if this whole situation is _absurd_.

“That – that was my _only chance_ of finally proving that the Sith are _here_ , Sian.” He pants out, anger guttering into bitterness, and she shoves her way over broken hunks of stone a little less cautiously, not liking how much effort speaking seems to take him, not liking the pain she can sense, the blood she can smell. “And because of _you_ , I have _nothing_.”

She flinches at the accusation.

And then it register, what he has just _said_ -

“The Sith?” Sian utters in hollow shock.

 _The Sith? How – that’s not – that’s can’t be_ -

It scratches across her brain in white static, creche-tales and youngling nightmares and historical accounts swarming vividly in her mind, a thousand repetitions by her crechemaster promising that these are just stories, that _the Sith are long gone_ -

“Erm – hello?” Obi-Wan calls out, and Sian jolts, startled back into her present situation. She turns her head, finding him harder to hear, though she must actually be closer to him. She thinks. Maybe. Perhaps there was simply more solid matter between their positions now, less gaps to carry their voices.

“We’re still here.” Sian calls out. She breathes, and lets that settle in her. _We’re still here_. “How’s my master?” He’s still alive, she can feel that, but his presence is so terribly weak.

Obi-Wan hesitates to answer, and Sian bites her lip again, squeezing her eyes shut when they threaten to burn.

 _He’s alive_ , Sian thinks to herself angrily. _That’s enough. That’s a miracle_.

That shouldn’t have been Obi-Wan’s burden to bear, and shame hits Sian again.

It seems she has made nothing but mistakes today, and she is _sorry_.

“He’s alive.” Obi-Wan finally calls back. “I’ve done what I can.”

Sian swallows, her throat tight. “Thank you.” She calls back, scraping her shoulders trying to wedge around a pipe. Her belt sticks, and Sian has a moment of instinctive panic at being trapped before she stifles it, sucking in her stomach and carefully twisting her hips, pushing and pulling with a little more force until it yanks free and she can shuffle forward. There is less height here, her arm trails in something wet, and Master Ben’s breathing is close. She reaches for him, ignores the sticky tack of half-cooled blood.

“Master Ben?”

There is a soft, choked gasp and a sniffle, and Sian feels her heart pound in alarm, dragging herself closer on her elbows until her fingers finally touch something living. There is a hitched shudder under her hand, and she realizes, quite abruptly, that the man is crying.

~*~

“Master Ben?” The padawan shuffles closer, carefully feeling out where she might be treading – what she might be hitting. Her caution is appreciated.

Ben is face down on the cracked duracrete, blood seeping up his hip and across the floor. Something is impaled through his thigh, and his foot is trapped under a fallen chunk of duracrete slab. He’s not sure if the Healers will be able to reconstruct it, but he imagined every bone shin and below is broken to pieces, from the feel of it before he stopped allowing himself to feel it, else he start screaming.

Mauls tormented howls ring in his ears, and Ben grinds his teeth, tears seeping through the dust coating his face.

He cannot decide if the Force has done him a cruelty or a kindness. It seemed some things were destined – if not in the ways he would expect.

Fate, it appears, would forever set Darth Maul against the Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn.

In turn, _this_ Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was _not_ his padawan, was capable of saving him.

 _He’s alive_.

 _This time, he’s alive_.

Another tear trickles down his nose, emotions too hard and messy to comprehend wracking through him. Where Ben is left in all of this...

Maul has escaped. Where he will go from here, Ben doesn’t know – he never did. If he goes back to Sidious…

Ben can only pray he doesn’t, and it is a wretched prayer.

But even if he runs…

Without Maul… without him Ben does not have what he _needs_.

Perhaps the Jedi can be convinced, or at least the remains of the skeptics (or hopeless optimists, depending on your point of view) on the Council, without hard proof, but the Senate? How can they hope to act against Sidious while he has the backing of the Republic? He may not be Chancellor – _yet_ – but he’s not far from it. His support is strong, his standing in the eyes of his peers, of his home-world, of the general public in so far as they are aware of politicians and senators - is _faultless_ , and the bureaucracy of government and politics will favor him, particularly with the recent strain on the relationship between the Senate and the Order.

Ben has seen his people betrayed by those they have served before.

He _cannot_ be the reason it happens again.

Sian’s probing fingers find the bar through his leg and Ben flinches, more in surprise and reflex than the pain he’s separated himself from.

“Sorry.” The padawan shudders, sounding small as she draws back, her weak apology trying to encompass so much more than _this_. “ _Sorry_.” She repeats miserably.

Ben would close his eyes if it would do any good. This entire day has been…. too much. He is sapped, and he has rapidly lost the energy to be angry. She has been foolish and disobedient, but she did not deserve blame for what she could not have known, and he should not have turned his temper on her like that. He blinks, dust falling from his lashes.

The darkness is unwavering.

He listens to the structure above them creak and moan, still settling. They’ll have to wait for rescue – he can’t lift _all_ of it. He’s not Anakin.

“It is what it is, padawan.” Ben sighs, breath coming short. Something had hit him on the way down – bruised his ribs.

He can hear Sian swallow. “The Sith are really back?” She whispers, rattled by the revelation, by the weight of what has just happened as it pressed down around her.

Ben drops his brow against cool duracrete, a few pebbles digging in to his skin. “Truthfully, little sister,” He rasps hoarsely, sinking against the floor, worn beyond measure. “ they were never actually gone.”

A small breath punches out of her, as that sinks in. “Oh.”


	16. Chapter 16

“How did your – anti-jedi assassin – know the Chancellor would be here?” Lachas bites out, before even bothering to turn around, when he finds himself on the beach again.

“ _Anti-Jedi Assas_ \- that is not –“ Trip sputters, and then makes a hard noise in his throat changing the subject. “I don’t think he did.”

Lachas looks back sharply, arms crossed as a dreamt-up breeze tugs at his clothes. “He was _here_ , waiting.”

Trip frowns in displeasure and nods, frowning out over the curling sea. “He was, and yet – he _missed_. If his target was the Chancellor, it was the messiest job he’s ever done, and the first hit I know of that he’s failed. If he had information on the Chancellors movement when even our people were in the dark…”

Lachas follows that thought to its conclusion well enough. If the assassin had that much inside intel, the job should have been a lot cleaner, and so much more discreet, more successful.

“Maybe it was his intention to miss? Intimidation?” Even as he suggests it, it doesn’t feel right to Lachas, and he can tell by the pinch in the other spy’s boyish face that he feels the same.

“I don’t think his target was the Chancellor at all. Do you have the casualty reports yet?”

Lachas does, but he hesitates. “We aren’t supposed to work together.” He reminds the other spy. A few friendly nudges in certain directions was one thing, but outright collaboration…

Their respective networks were safer if they worked separately, especially in moments like these with so much scrutiny on them. If one of them failed… the other needed to be secure.

Besides, judging by their last conversation, their respective investigations had branched very far in different directions. Lachas wasn’t himself directly involved anymore – on account of the very annoying Jedi Shadow before him - but he knew most of Alderaan’s focus was data diving into Senate records, tracing compounding flaws in legislation… it was a far cry from tracking assassins and the shadows of a religious antithesis. The Jedi were looking for the Sith – or something taking after them, Lachas supposed.

Alderaan was looking for corruption, partisan alliances and more insidious influences on the powers within the Galactic Republic – a political enemy, not an ideological one. They were dealing with things a little less…. esoteric, a little more provable.

And still being run around.

“Lachas Bey.” Trip growls out, looking more truly frustrated than the usual cheery and pouty façade he displays. “I have spent the last _year_ chasing this monster, and this is the _first_ time he has lead me even remotely back to you and your people. I don’t even know – ” He stops, takes a breath, and tries again, and Lachas feels unfairly guilty for how much his counterpart seems to be struggling. “We started in the same place, but I don’t even know if your people and mine are still chasing the same things. We still don’t know what even tipped _you_ off, what you’re really _looking_ for. Just help me out here. I can get it on my own – I’ll have to, but you can make it _easy_ on me, you know. Call it a favor, one spy to another. You never know when you might need to cash one in.”

That was… reasonable. Lachas scowls and sighs, giving in to temptation.

“Alright, everyone’s security is working double-time trying to keep this under wraps until their respective governments can be informed and plan accordingly, but it looks like four Chandrilan security, a couple of Ryloth attendants, two individuals I am almost certain were Corellian spies, a dozen hotel staff and a good portion of the Trade Federation’s leadership are on the casualty list. Injured parties number in the dozens from just as many different delegations.” He offers up.

The Jedi Shadow huffs, shaking his head and setting his curls bobbing. “Alderaan intelligence.” He says ruefully, before tapping on his lips. “The Trade Federation? _They_ were the target?” His expression scrunches up, skeptical. Lachas has nothing for him about that.

Maybe the two spies really were working in opposite directions – Alderaan had good reason to put a lot of scrutiny on the Trade Federation, given their recent maneuvers in the political arena, though there was no proof that their actions were anything more than corporate greed. If Trip’s target was in competition, not an alliance, with them…

“I hate to suggest it, but are you certain your… _darksider_ truly is anything more than a mercenary?” Lachas inquires.

“Not that we can _prove_.” Trip admits sullenly. “Though we are considering some exceedingly _stupid_ options for getting proof.”

“That….does not sound advisable.”

Trip puffs a laugh, the sound utterly without humor.

Lachas swallows. He cannot imagine what the spy must be going through. Matters have been quite dire for the Jedi of late. Even the best could be… could struggle.

“We do what we must.” Trip mutters. “Thank you.”

Lachas frowns. “I wasn’t very helpful.” He points out flatly. “And you were no help at all.”

Trip grins with every ounce of the boyish charm he exudes regardless of the face he’s wearing. “No, but friends don’t always need to be, do they?”

Lachas eyes widen, and he sputters. “We are not _friends_!”

He blinks awake with the Shadow’s damnable snickering echoing through his head.

 _You ought to lie better than that_!

~*~

Bail knocks softly on the frame of the open door of the hospital room, light spilling across pale blue floors, earning identical pleasantly surprised looks from two equally rumpled red-heads. They have the greasy-haired look of the un-showered, and the blood-shot, sunken eyes of the exhausted.

Obi-Wan is sitting on the foot of Ben’s hospital bed, his loose shirt revealing strange, curling burns across his skin, dabbed in flaking bacta. Bruises stand out vivid on his fair skin, and Bail experiences a sudden surge of fierce, protective anger regarding the boys injuries. Obi-Wan offers him a sincere smile, cracked by two splits in his lip. “Senator Organa.”

“Obi-Wan, you were at my wedding.” Bail huffs in good-natured exasperation. “Please be a _tad_ less formal.”

The young man’s smile takes on a cheeky tilt. “Senator Bail.” He amends.

Bail smiles, shaking his head and turning his attention onto Ben, who had a chalky undertone to his slightly ruddy, permanently sun-marked skin. A dark bruise splashes across a split cheek, dried blood speckling in his beard, and his ribs are wrapped, his spine braced while bacta injections do their work. Bail doesn’t let his expression shift in the slightest when his quick assessment reaches the thick, compressed bandages on Ben’s right thigh, and the stump below his knee where the rest of his leg used to be.

He looks back up to Ben’s face, earning a pinched smile from his tense, tired friend.

Bail clasps his hands behind his back, so the jedi don’t see the way his knuckles tighten in clenched anger.

“Bail.” Ben greets, tipping up his palms on the bed, voice a little raspy.

It had taken nearly thirty hours to dig the jedi out. Bail had spent most of that time conferencing with the shattered remains of the summit and giving convenient excuses for his people to be out and about digging into everything that had happened here.

Still, the worry had eaten at him.

“Ben.” Bail returns. The jedi master looks him over and turns towards his padawan.

“Obi-Wan, why don’t you go check on Sian? Bail can keep me company for awhile.”

A guilty sort of tension takes hold of the young man, to Bail’s concern. “But I-“

“Obi-Wan.” His master shakes his head. “You did what you could. It will be alright. Go keep her company.”

“Yes, _baji’buir_.” The boy nods and slips off the bed. He hesitates, turns back steps up to his master, leaning in to press their brows together briefly. Ben’s eyes drop shut, and he presses back against the odd form of affection, lifting a hand up to his padawan’s unkempt nerf-tail.

Then he tugs on Obi-Wan’s padawan braid, and shoos the young man away.

Bail and the padawan bow politely to each other as the teenager slips past him, and then Bail turns back to Ben, stepping over and seating himself in the chair beside the bed, moving it so he and Ben can face each other in spite of the unequal eye-line.

“Remind me to never let you dash off while telling me to stay put again.” Bail remarks.

Ben huffs. “Bail, you are a senator and the future Viceroy of Alderaan. I’m a Jedi Master. That is an unfeasible request.”

“Ben.” Bail’s humor drops, his throat tightening as the remaining stress of those thirty hours clings to him. “I didn’t know if you were still _alive_.”

The Jedi Master’s gaze slides away from his, turning out the window, pinching unpleasantly. “I am sorry for that.” He murmurs, that sorrow deeply felt in his voice.

Bail sighs, mulling over his thoughts as he stares at his friend. The Jedi Master looks worn, the desperate strain of someone trapped seeming to cling to him. The loose hospital shift does him no favors either, Bail thinks, making him seem smaller than he ought to be. Bail’s fingers come up to play with the pins on his shoulder, activating the little devices out of caution.

He hates to do this here and now, but…

“Ben.” Bail calls softly for his attention, and earns it, though there is…perhaps shame, in his friends’ face, as his hand plucks absently at the medical tag on his otherwise bare wrist. Bail hopes to put some of that at ease. “The last time I saw you that unsettled, an attempt had just been made on your padawans life.”

“I explained that.” Ben says stiffly, brow furrowing slightly as his gaze flicks to Bail’s with a wary sharpness. Bail quirks a brow, leaning back in his chair and watching the shrewd intelligence swirl in his blue-grey eyes as Ben studies Bail in turn.

Bail nods slowly, and starts honestly. “You _implied_ it was little more than paranoia. I believe I understand _why_ you did so, considering you had, of course, been utterly correct.”

Ben tenses, expression wavering unreadably as Bail’s careful words fall into place, the implications of their meaning sinking in. “That is not - Bail, what did you _do_?”

Bail meets that harsh tone calmly. He hardly expected the news to not be upsetting, considering how Ben had reacted back then. “Breha and I had our people look into-“

The reinforced transparisteel window cracks with a loud snap, and Bail’s words dry up in his throat. Bail doesn’t flinch, but he tenses, holding his breath as the temperature suddenly seems to plunge, and yet… a scorched smell reaches his nose, pressure building in the air-

“Ben. Ben.” Bail breaks through his own alarm and utters his name softly. “You need to _calm down_. My friend…breathe, Ben. Breathe, and be calm. “

Ben jerks his gaze down, closing his eyes and sucking in a harsh breath, hands shaking before he manages to unclaw them from the sheets, gone yellow and charred around his grip and that – that is an alarming detail that sends a shiver of unease right down Bail’s spine.

He swallows, steels himself, and refuses to fear his friend.

“Bail.” When Ben manages to speak, his voice is utterly level, devoid of anything. In spite of that, his breathing comes quick and loud, and his gaze goes past Bail, not to him. “You can’t – you _can not_ get involved in this. I can’t – “ His voice starts to waver, drawn thin and coarse. “ - _No_. You have no idea what you’re dealing with, how dangerous - _promise_ me you will _leave it be_.”

“Ben, if it concerns –“ Bail protests, leaning forward again.

“Bail, _please_.” Ben’s voice cracks, and all the defense in the world is not enough to overcome the fact that it breaks Bail’s heart, to see him so undone. “Please. You and Breha are dear to me and I can’t – if you – if anything were to - “

Bail pushes out of the chair and settles himself on the edge of the bed, wrapping his fingers around Ben’s wrist in a gentle hold. His skin is frigid to the touch, and Bail ignores it.

“Ben. Ben.” Bail calls him back, resting his other hand on the shaking mans shoulder and drawing him in, relying on the way that had seemed to work to settle the man back at the hotel, the way physical touch seemed to ground him. “You and Obi-Wan and your people are our friends too, you know.”

Ben sags against him, gasping faintly as the action jars his healing ribcage. He lets out a pained breath, one hand gripping Bail’s arm almost painfully. “I know, Bail, I know and I – but I can’t – Bail.” He sucks in a breath, shuddering as he lets it back out. “I _can’t_ deal with the thought of you getting mixed up in all this.”

Bail closes his eyes in regret, holding Ben steady, and nods. “Alright.” He says simply. He had hoped – he had hoped to be able to work with Ben, to get him to possibly give them something more to go on, aware, if puzzled, by the fact that what Ben had told him – he had _not_ told the Jedi Order. However, if _this_ was his reaction at the mere idea of their involvement…

Ben was a good man, a good friend, but Bail was not so callous as to be careless of the fact that Ben was also not _well_. The exact opposite of what he wants is to cause his friend pain. “Alright.” He repeats.

He and Breha would continue with what they had. With luck and a good deal of hard work, perhaps they can even protect Ben – protect all the Jedi – from what it is he so terribly fears.

Bail and Breha – their network – could find no true direct act of malice against the Jedi – none provable beyond wild speculation, at least - but littered all through their investigation were malignant hindrances and obstacles and restrictions that had slowly, so slowly, built up around the Order like a noose. Whether by design or simply as collateral for other schemes… it was difficult to know for certain.

Bail sighs softly, leaning into Ben, who, in spite of his frail state, is still a solid presence to find himself braced against. The Jedi Master always had been.

The unfortunate truth of the matter was that Breha had far greater concerns in what they were finding than even the corrosive downfall of the Jedi Order. Bail was doing what he could within the Senate, but for all his popularity and Alderaan’s political power, he was still a junior senator in that august body. Even with Senator Antilles cooperation, there was only so much they could do.

Ben’s fears were all too valid, and Bail would respect them as best he was able, but the stakes… the stakes were so much more than they had imagined, at the start.

They could not concede now, could not withdraw, could not ignore this. Would not, no matter the risks and the dangers.

Ben’s breathing calms, his shoulder pressed against Bail’s chest, and Bail waits while the Jedi gathers himself, reclaiming that ineffable serenity his people were so known for. “My apologies.” He states primly, looking a touch embarrassed as he pulls back, righting himself against the stack of pillows at the head of his bed, brushing a stray lock of hair back from his face.

“Not at all.” Bail replies easily. “I admit this was not the ideal time nor place for such a conversation, and I did not mean to spring it on you, it is only… these last few days have been distressing. It seemed…” Bail exhales, letting it go.

“I appreciate your concern, Bail, but there is nothing for you to _do_.” Ben insists, his expression imploring, stormy eyes bright in his battered face. 

Bail sighs, dissatisfied, but lets it go.

“What is happening with the Summit, then?” Ben prompts, seeking a change of subject and tone.

“Nothing.” Bail admits, displeased on that front as well. “It won’t be proceeding. There are tentative proposals to try again, but….the issues will remain unresolved, in spite of…” Bail trails off, grimacing faintly.

Ben arches a brow, curious and prompting. “In spite of…?”

“The Trade Federation came off the worst in this attack. As of this morning, Nute Gunray of Cato Nemoidia was elected its sole chairman and representative, given that he was the only survivor from the board. He is blaming this entire event on extremist opposition, though most holo-casts are reporting it as a failed attempt to assassinate the Chancellor.” Bail shakes his head and catches the utterly blank look that takes over Ben’s face, the sudden pall of what little color he had.

“Ben?”

“I see.” The jedi remarks, looking away. He takes a measured breath. “Bail, would you mind terribly if I meditated?”

See that – that calm, pleasant lilt and that perfectly affable hint of a smile, in spite of his eyes being completely flat? Bail _does not_ like that.

“Would you like me to leave?” He asks softly, torn at the prospect. Ben stares at him, lips parting once before he stops, and then he shakes his head.

“No, no, that’s alright. It might be terribly boring for you, I’m afraid, but if you wouldn’t mind staying…. I find your presence a great comfort.” The red-headed jedi admits, slightly sheepish but all too heartfelt.

Bail isn’t a blushing man, but that confession does spill warmth through his chest, and he finds a smile crossing his face, unease seeping out of his spine. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” He replies.


	17. Chapter 17

The Third of Shadows has vast experience in dangerous, unlikely situations, has delved into the arcane and witnessed his fair share of powers that the galaxy does not understand.

It does not make it any less startling when his current partner – his young, often morbidly sarcastic and outrageously flirtatious partner - explodes out of the shadows in an empty room and collapses on the floor in a literal spray of blood.

_Karking hells!_

Trip is at his side in an instant, rolling him over so he’s not mashed face down on the floor in a quickly growing pool of blood. “Ah hells, kid.” Trip exhales sharply, as the maneuver reveals a barely conscious kiffar weakly clamping a hand over a messy, open wound at his throat, blood spurting from a torn artery.

Quinlan gurgles, body jerking as it panics for the losing battle, and the young man struggles when Trip tries to remove him hand so he can get a proper compress on that wound and see what he can do.

“Quit fighting, damn you.” Trip orders sharply, putting a pretty powerful suggestion into the command. “You need to drop into a trance, kid, _now_. Trust me. _Hey_ , trust me.”

It’s not easy to force another Jedi into a trance, especially not one this stubborn, but if the kid won’t karking listen, Trip might lose him.

He really, really doesn’t want to lose him.

Quinlan goes suddenly limp, and Trip has no idea if he’s passed out from blood loss, from the mind trick, or if he’s actually in a healing trance. He doesn’t take the time to find out either, moving limp brown fingers out of the way and setting to work, grimacing at the slick-hot-wet of open flesh.

Trip isn’t a surgeon, but there isn’t a Shadow worth their name that hasn’t learned enough healing to hold a death wound, even if just for a little while, so he puts his efforts right into sealing that artery.

In the intensity of the moment, the singular focus that Force Healing requires, time seems to both stretch and slow. Trip manages to seal the artery, and then he has to clear Quinlan’s lungs, and after that – well, with the kid no longer in danger of bleeding out or choking, Trip bandages him up, doses him for the pain while grimacing at the ragged mess, and then drops into a light meditation himself, trying to recoup the energy he just spent.

He starts back to alertness to the sound of Quinlan making rough grating noises, like he was trying to clear his throat, a shot of panic rising in the air.

“Easy, kid, easy.” Trip in back at his side in a blink, and nearly gets a broken nose for it. Trip raises his hands, backing off a moment, and Quinlan seems to register him, as he slumps a little, fingers prodding at his bandaged throat.

“What happened?” Trip asks, easing closer again, giving him a more thorough once-over now that Quinlan’s not bleeding out.

Quinlan takes a minute, getting used to breathing with the odd constriction, and then lifts his hands.

~ _Found him. Thought he was dead. No arms. Face down._ _Got too close. Was stupid_. ~

Trip snorts. “The idea of capture necessitates getting a little close.”

Quinlan gives him a dull look of displeasure and points at his injury. ~ _Surprised me._ _Fucking teeth_.~ He signs.

“He _bit_ you?” Trip’s brows shoot up. That was… different.

Quinlan’s expression pulls in outrage. ~ _Tore my kriffing throat open!_ ~

“Yeah, I know.” Trip sighs. The amount of blood on the floor and his own hands, and the ashen pallor to Quinlan’s dark skin was testament to that. “We’ll have to get a real medic to put the rest of it back together.”

Trip, at that thought, grabs an anti-sep shot from his kit and sticks the younger man. Quinlan doesn’t even twitch, just frowns, fingers swiping idly down his chest as he sags, shivering a bit. Trip drags a blanket over and shrouds the kid, aware that he needs to get some fluids in him and soon.

The young kiffar closes his eyes, failure pinching his expression tightly.

“It’s not that bad, kid, you survived.” Trip reassures him, mentally debating the chandrilan hospital versus black market supplies.

No spy was perfect. Quinlan Vos was not a Shadow by trade, and Trip didn’t think he really wanted to be, and in spite of that, he was doing a damn fine job.

Quinlan opens his eyes and gives his mentor a dull, unimpressed look.

~ _He took the amulet_. ~

The Third of Shadows looks at the kiffar Knight, drops his gaze to Quinlan’s unadorned chest, and then looks back up, meeting yellow-edged brown eyes.

“He took the amulet.” Trip repeats.

The amulet. Their magical, irreplaceable means of tracking the darksider.

Quinlan nods, a quick, unhappy bob of his head.

Trip takes a measured breath.

 _In, pause, exhale_.

“ _Shit_.”

~*~

Taria Damsin derives no small amount of pleasure in watching Obi-Wan Kenobi be fussed over by a towering, rather terrifying Kaleesh Warlord.

Several parties are mingling in the atrium of the diplomatic port, waiting for their respective ships to be inspected and released to them so that they may go home.

The last few days have been nothing but chaos and mystery, and Taria is _madly_ itching to have answers. She knows Obi-Wan could give them to her – about the darkness she’d felt in the Force, about the would-be assassin, about what kind of being bested _four_ Jedi.

Still, a warning holds in her head, a scolding – not to get too close to secrets she isn’t prepared to handle, and not to use a friend as a means to an end.

Taria _wants_ to know everything.

She’s just not sure that _she_ \- as an individual, no one more remarkable than a Corellian Padawan - _needs_ to, though, and that is – harder to accept than she would like.

She wrestles with it. Her master admires her curiosity, her tenacity, but it is an ongoing lesson that Taria needs to be mindful of overstepping herself, of accepting boundaries and restrictions when she treads where it is _not_ her right nor her place to do so.

A soft click gets her attention. Rudaban clicking his fingers so that she will mind him when he tries to speak with her. ~ _Trouble_? ~ Her brother-padawan signs.

“Only myself.” Taria replies with a teasing grin.

Her kaleesh sibling narrows his eyes faintly behind his mask, looking her over. Then he follows her unfocused attention to where it had been – on Padawan Kenobi and Khagan Jai Sheelal, and beyond them, across the atrium to the Jedi Master on crutches, saying goodbye to the Alderaan contingent. Neither of them are tactless enough to linger on the stump of his lower leg.

~ _This event has been a spar in the mirror_. ~ Rudaban signs carefully, and Taria can sense his agitation.

“It has been.” She replies, getting used to his people’s idioms. That one being something close to the same as _we’ve_ _been_ _chasing ourselves in circles_. He makes a rough noise out of his damaged vocal chords.

~ _Be wary less of the one who changes their mask, than of those who change their eyes_. ~

Taria raises her brows. “I only have enough cultural context to grasp about half the meaning of that, Dai Soboc.”

He rumbles a little, and taps his mask. ~ _What is beneath is far more than what it seems to be. I do not trust what has happened here to be as it seems. Neither do you. This is your trouble, yes_? ~

Taria smiles, both delighted and dismayed that he has read her thoughts so easily. “Yes, Rudaban, that it is.”

He makes a softer warbling sound, and brushes his knuckles against her arm. She tries not to chafe at being given the same method of comfort as a pouty child. It is far less endearing to be on the receiving side, she thinks, as Obi-Wan catches her gaze with a faint spark in his eye of ‘at least I’m not the only one!’.

Rudaban tilts his head, gaze flickering over to Padawan Kenobi and Master Naasade again, and then back to her, just as thoughtful.

~ _Do you trust the hands of those that are taking care of it_? ~ He inquires.

Taria bites her tongue, thinking about that. Obi-Wan Kenobi is – _Obi-Wan Kenobi_. His Master… Master Ben Naasade is… something, she thinks. A catalyst wrapped in secrets and danger. But if nothing else, he is the man who guided Obi-Wan into becoming who he was, and she doesn’t think that is any small feat in and of itself. She may be biased. She knows the Kaleesh are.

Taria takes a deep breath, holds it and lets the world flow through her. The Force sings – hope and sadness, danger and victory, light and shadow, a looming horizon, like the edge of a cliff – what’s beyond it is beyond her. It could be freedom. It could be failure. She doesn’t know.

She resigns herself to what she does not know.

 _Faith_ , after all.

Tara breathes out. “I suppose I do.” She admits. She is still going to address the matter with her master, of course, but beyond that… beyond that, this is beyond her.

~ _Good_. ~ the former shaman signs. ~ _Then stop being troubled. It distresses me_. ~

Taria huffs, exasperated, and goes to rescue Obi-Wan from the Senator and Khagan Jai Sheelal.

~*~

Qui-Gon has the sense, when he wakes, that he has been rising and falling towards awareness or some time. Snatches of conversations and disorientation linger hazily around the edges of his mind.

He can tell he’s been submerged in bacta by the gods-awful tang deep in his sinuses and the revolting taste of it in the back of his throat. For some reason, he can also smell the damp-earth of soil. His eyes come open slowly, close before he really registers having opened them, and he struggles to open them again.

There is a deep pressure on his hand – another clasping his, he thinks, but this tells him far more than that. He has the floaty, detached feeling of the well-drugged. That pressure, he thinks, should be more like pain.

In which case, he imagines the odd sense of pressure he can feel throughout the rest of his body…

He manages to get his eyes open, his throat sticking when he tries to swallow.

He’s in the Halls of Healing, his room darkened for the night cycle. Sian is asleep, sitting in a chair beside his bio-bed, he face buries in the crook of one arm, her other hand clenched tight to his, strands of brown and white streaked hair pulling loose from an unkempt braid.

He doesn’t register his eyes closing till he peels them open again, perhaps a few minutes later.

Sian is still there, her fingers clenched tight, a shiver rippling across her shoulders.

A soft mechanical whirring hums from the bio-bed, and he finds his bedside table overflowing with plants – with _his_ plants, he recognizes slowly.

Worry bubbles up in his stomach. That explains the smell of soil, but… how long has he been here?

“Master?”

Sian has raised her head, and he realizes she has not been asleep at all – her eyes are swollen and dark-rimmed, snot glistening beneath her nose – she’s been crying, her iridescent blue eyes shadowed and fragile.

“Pa-“ His voice stutters, and he tries to swallow again. A small spoonful of ice-chips touches his lips abruptly, and Qui-Gon nearly spits them out before he recognizes what they are. Moving any part of his body feels heavy and sluggish. He manages to swallow, watching his padawan watch him with fierce, guilty worry written across her face.

He dimly remembers why. The Summit, the darksider, her and Obi-Wan, rushing down the tunnel –

He moves his hand vaguely, trying to reach for her, and she meets him more than half-way, catching it. “You’re alright.” He rasps, beautifully relieved. She’d been covered in blood, he recalls, but he can’t see a mark on her.

This prompts – to his great distress – more tears.

“I’m sorry, I – I’m, Master, I’m so sorry. I distracted you, I –“

“Enough.” Qui-Gon croaks, squeezing her hand. Trying to. His fingers twitch. She gives him more ice-chips, and he manages to curl his fingers properly, though this prompts pins-and-needles. Still, it is enough to hold her hand. “Not the first padawan to go chasing after their master.”

“But you – you were –“

“ _Enough_.” Qui-Gon commands tiredly. His gaze falls on the table again, and an attempt to frown causes a twitch in his cheek. There is a numbness to the world that is starting to permeate his brain as his thoughts sharpen, a dullness. He stares at his plants. “Why are… how long?”

“Seven days.” Sian reports dutifully, sitting on the edge of his bed now, one hand shakily holding a spoon, the other clinging to his. The fine fuzz on her face is matted with tear-tracks, prickly where the little hairs stick together. “Three on Chandrila, four at the Temple. I brought your plants down for you. They were sad and…” She bites her lip, gups in a breath, and lets it out. “I thought they might make you more comfortable. You were…” She shudders, not finishing the thought.

He always was more as ease surrounded by greenery.

Qui-Gon stares at his plants. The fern is a bit spotty, one of his succulents has bloomed, practically bursting with it, and the vine has curled in, unhappy, no doubt, at the change of environment. His moss is trying to crawl down the edges of its pot again. He can see them. He can smell them.

He can’t sense them at all.

He can’t – he can’t sense _anything_.

Not his plants. Not his padawan. Not the Temple.

Not even himself.

Qui-Gon swallows, and swallows again, panic welling up.

“Master?” Sian whispers, pleading and anxious as the table rattles, one of the sensors on the bio-bed beeping distressingly.

His heart thunders, and he can feel it, heavy and hard as it bursts against his ribcage, his pulse rushing in swells in his ears. His body is heavy, his extremities cold, and –

And he is completely Force Blind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author:   
> Edited the conversation between Trip and Quinlan to clear it up.


End file.
